Park rangers found a body in a dry creek bed at the bottom of a ravine in Badlands National Park Wednesday, officials said.
Hikers spotted a backpack and other personal items in the Sage Creek Wilderness area Tuesday evening but crews needed to wait until Wednesday to search the area because of unsafe conditions, park spokeswoman Christine Czazasty said.
Wednesday's discovery comes more than a month after park officials suspended the search for a missing Nebraska man.
Joshua Jacobsen, a 39-year-old formerly of Lincoln, was the only person reported missing in the park, Czazasty said.
The FBI and Pennington County Sheriff's Office assisted in the recovery Wednesday.
A coroner will now try to determine the cause of death and the identity of the person, whose body was so decomposed investigators couldn't confirm the sex, Czazasty said.
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Jacobsen disappeared in the 381-square-mile expanse in western South Dakota sometime in July.
He last contacted friends and family July 12, sending a text message from inside the park.
He was reported missing July 16, after he failed to return to work in Laurel.
Jacobsen, a longtime Lincoln cook before moving to Laurel this summer, was visiting Badlands for the first time, according to family and friends.
He was on a spiritual journey, a vision quest modeled after a Lakota rite of passage.