WYOMING – On Tuesday, March 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver, Colorado, upheld the public’s right to access public land via “corner-crossing,” the practice of stepping from one piece of public land to another over a corner shared with private land. The ruling illuminates Teton County’s unique position as one of the last strongholds for easily accessible wilderness.
According to the Jackson Hole Land Trust, Jackson Hole is comprised of 97% public land, including Grand Teton National Park (GTNP), Bridger-Teton National Forest (BTNF) and the National Elk Refuge (NER), with only 3% being privately owned.
Josh Metten, former Jackson resident, Cody sportsman and Wyoming Field Manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, shared with Buckrail on Wednesday, March 19, that Teton County is fortunate to have so much accessible open space.
“In Teton County, the BTNF, NER, GTNP and Yellowstone National Park facilitate abundant public land access,” Metten said. “There are other parts of Wyoming and other parts of the West where there are actually millions of acres of landlocked public land.”
Metten explained that when a parcel of public land is surrounded on all four sides by private property or “landlocked,” there is no permanent public access unless it is provided by an easement. According to an onX mapping report, there are 3.05 million acres of federal public landlocked land with no permanent legal access in Wyoming. Metten said that Teton County does not have much landlocked public land, but there are a few parcels of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land that are only accessible via the Snake River.
Metten added that some public land bordered by private property could be accessible via corner-crossing provided one does not physically touch private land. Approximately 8.3 million acres of public land across the West is “corner-locked” or in a checkerboard formation, meaning the public land will only touch at the corners without roads or trails to provide direct access.
Metten said that the recent court decision allowing public land access via corner-crossing was a huge victory for public land advocates. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit heeded the Supreme Court ruling over a century ago that private landowners cannot erect barriers that bar complete access to public lands based on the 1885 Unlawful Inclosures Act.
The court case stemmed directly from several incidents in 2020 and 2021, when four out-of-state elk hunters corner-crossed public lands in Carbon County, Wyoming. According to the court’s records, the hunters in question crossed from one BLM parcel to another connected to Fred Eshelman’s 22,045 acre ranch. Elk Mountain Ranch holdings span 50 miles of southeastern Wyoming, much of it in areas where public and private land is interspersed in a checkerboard pattern.
In 2022, Eshelman, a pharmaceutical executive, sued the hunters for $7 million in damages, claiming that his property would lose an estimated $9 million in value if he lost exclusive access to the elk-rich public land, WyoFile reported.
The Appeal from the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming states that a federal three-judge panel, David M. Ebel, Timothy M. Tymkovich and Nancy Louise Moritz, determined that corner-crossing does not constitute trespassing. The three judges unanimously sided with Wyoming Chief U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl’s ruling in 2023, which stated that private landowners could not prevent others from corner crossing as long they don’t step onto private property.
The District Court of Wyoming wrote that Carbon County’s court case speaks to a greater public land access issue across the West.
“Passing through Carbon County, Wyoming — a vast expanse of the ‘Great American Desert’ in south-central Wyoming — few might peg it as a venue for conflict between the rights of private property and public access,” Tenth Circuit Judges Ebel, Tymkovich and Moritz wrote. “Yet this county has been the epicenter of a 150-year conflict touching on the core of property law and, simultaneously, defining the American West. That conflict arose, in part, because of the overlapping history of laws and pioneer practices that governed the opening of the American frontier.”
Metten said that while this court case was a win, it does not address the millions of acres of landlocked public land across the West that are not corner locked. He stressed the importance of public-private partnerships, voluntary access easements and voluntary land acquisitions to improve access to public lands, while respecting private property rights.
