In mid-March of this year, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth District ruled that corner-crossing — that is, accessing public land tracts at a common corner with private land tracts — is legal, and thus, the practice is protected by federal law. This is a huge win for hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts who have heretofore been denied public access to millions of acres of public lands in the West.
How big is this decision? According to popular GPS mapping company onX, more than eight million acres of public land across 11 Western states are only accessible via corner crossing. While this Tenth Circuit decision is limited to Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming, it is hoped the precedent will allow the ruling will be expanded to all states.
To sum up the case, the legal challenge to the practice of private landowners blocking access to public lands adjacent to their holdings was forced by four nonresident Missouri elk hunters who, in both 2020 and 2021, accessed a block of BLM land in Wyoming by using a ladder to go up and over the corner where private lands owned by Iron Bar Ranch touched as a means to access the public land without ever setting foot on private ground. The ranch owner charged them with both civil and criminal trespass, saying their brief intrusion into the airspace above the private land diminished the 22,042-acre ranch’s property value — claiming damages of between $3.1-$7.75 million. The ranch was appraised at $31.31 million in 2017.
Initially, in 2022, the Carbon County, Wyoming, court found the four hunters had not violated any laws by their actions. That decision was appealed, and in 2023, the U.S. District Court in Wyoming dismissed the civil case, and Iron Bar Ranch again appealed. While the most recent ruling could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, that appears unlikely. “The Hunters never made contact with the surface of Iron Bar’s land,” Circuit Court judge Timothy Tymkovich, writing for the majority, stated in upholding the previous 2023 decision. “There is no evidence the Hunters made physical contact with or damaged Iron Bar’s property.” The ruling further stated, “Iron Bar cannot implement a program which has the effect of “deny[ing] access to [federal] public lands for lawful purposes[.] So the district court was correct to hold that the Hunters could corner-cross as long as they did not physically touch Iron Bar’s land. We affirm.”
It will be interesting to see how states react to this decision going forward. After all, in many rural Western communities, local ranchers are prominent members of their communities, and their influences with local law enforcement and politicians loom large. Yet one would think, given the fact that one of the big reasons that hunters say they are leaving the sport is that they cannot find places to hunt, a court decision that essentially opens up millions of acres of public land to them would be celebrated. That remains to be seen. For example, after the 2023 District Court decision, in Wyoming, decisions regarding whether or not to prosecute hunters for alleged corner crossing infractions were pretty much left up to the discretion of local sheriff’s offices, game wardens, and/or district attorneys. And in a press release issued less than a week after the Wyoming verdict was handed down, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Deputy Director Dustin Temple stated, “Corner crossing remains unlawful in Montana, and Montanans should continue to obtain permission from the adjoining landowners before crossing corners from one piece of public land to another. Wardens will continue to report corner crossing cases to local county attorneys to exercise their prosecutorial discretion.”
In a press release issued shortly after the decision was announced, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers President and CEO Patrick Berry said, “This decision is a major win for hunters, anglers and anyone who values the freedom to access and enjoy our public lands. The American ideal of public land ownership depends on access to the landscapes and wild places that belong to all of us, not just a select few. This ruling makes it clear that corner-crossing is a legally acceptable way to preserve that access.” BHA joined the case as an amicus curia (friend of the court) and raised over $200,000 for the legal defense of the hunters who brought the case.
When I started traveling the West as a ham-and-egg public land hunter 50 years ago, it wasn’t unusual for landowners to block access to public land holdings adjacent to their properties. Nor is it uncommon for them to believe the game that occupied those lands were also theirs. If deer and elk winter in their hayfields, they obtain landowner tags they can barter or sell for big dollars, essentially driving the average Joe out of the game. Today an outfitted elk hunt on many of these private ranches will set a hunter back $2K-$3K per day.
Nobody is disputing the rights of a landowner to control access to their own property. Private property rights are one of the cornerstones of our society. If a rancher does not want to allow John Q. Public access to his land for any reason, or charge them whatever amount of money he can get to hunt his land, so be it. But when that same landowner wants to prevent reasonable access to adjacent public lands by saying that a person is trespassing by invading his airspace without physically touching his land, that’s going way too far. Thankfully, the Tenth Circuit Court’s decision has put an end to such arrogance.
What do you think about all this? Drop me a note at editor@grandviewoutdoors.com and let me know.
