Body dissolved: man ignores rules and falls into acidic hot spring at Yellowstone, leaving ‘no remains to recover’

Rangers suspended their attempts on Wednesday to recover the body of a man who wandered from a designated boardwalk and fell into an acidic hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, another in a string of incidents raising concerns over visitor behaviour.

“They were able to recover a few personal effects,” park spokeswoman Charissa Reid said. “There were no remains left to recover.”

Colin Nathaniel Scott, 23, of Portland, was with his sister and had travelled about 200 metres off the boardwalk on Tuesday when he slipped and fell into the hot spring in the Norris Geyser Basin, park officials said.

After Scott’s sister reported the fall, rangers navigated over the highly-fragile crust of the geyser basin to try to recover his body. They halted the effort Wednesday “due to the extreme nature and futility of it all,” Reid said, referring to the high temperature and acidic nature of the spring.

The death occurred in one of the hottest and most volatile areas of Yellowstone. It follows high-profile incidents at the rugged park in which tourists got too close to wildlife or went off designated pathways onto unique landmarks, sometimes leading to injuries.

“It’s sort of dumb, if I could be so blunt, to walk off the boardwalks not knowing what you’re doing,” said Kenneth Sims, a University of Wyoming geology professor and member of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

“They’re scofflaws essentially, who look around and then head off the boardwalk,” he added.