Corner crossing

This topic is center stage in Wyoming right now. Wishful thinking that Wyoming corrects this nonsense and opens the door for other states to follow suit. Not looking promising.
 
I hope you are just kidding. This is a serious issue for those of us that value public lands and increasing opportunity. That is how access gets shut down not increased...
I personal witnessed this happening where I had a hunting camp,people started putting up gates on public roads to end access to public lands. The thought was who’s going to pay 40 grand to go to court and get the gates removed. The locals handled it their way & the shit stopped be cause the county sheriffs would not respond to trespassing calls in that area. people will try shit & see if they can get away with it . Take note of the happenings in Seattle & Portland , it’s becoming a lawless world.
 
You know, one of the reasons it has become more and more difficult to get permission to hunt and fish on private property is because of a decline in people respecting private property.
Or people claiming public land as their own.
 
Or people claiming public land as their own.
Yes, frustrating. I don't remember the exact amount of public land landlocked by private in Montana but it is significant...and inaccessible legally.
Not certain monkey wrench gang tactics will help the cause.
 
I personal witnessed this happening where I had a hunting camp,people started putting up gates on public roads to end access to public lands. The thought was who’s going to pay 40 grand to go to court and get the gates removed. The locals handled it their way & the shit stopped be cause the county sheriffs would not respond to trespassing calls in that area. people will try shit & see if they can get away with it . Take note of the happenings in Seattle & Portland , it’s becoming a lawless world.
Your example is not a corner hopping issue.
 
In WY the rule has been that the GPS is not accurate enough to define the exact corner. So the only corners you could cross are the government marked corners, such as Section markers. Is this changing?

I've elk hunted WY several times and this is serious business, landowners are paid incredible sums of money just for access. Particularly land that can allow access to landlocked public land.

I know of one landowner that was paid $25,000 for permission to cross their land...no elk on their land....just access to a public unit. I hiked 7 miles in the dark to hunt the same valley.
 
You know, one of the reasons it has become more and more difficult to get permission to hunt and fish on private property is because of a decline in people respecting private property.

I agree. One can still go to the land owner and asked even if marked with orange paint on fence posts. It works out well a lot of times. Couple of times I had to bring them a fish for dinner.

When I owned river front in MT, some people did not respect my land. They could drive close and walk in a bit. No issue. But they drove all the way to the river and parked in long grass. A fire started due to that. No Bueno. No more access. MT law is very specific on access over private land. It is under land owner control no matter how long it has been used by others...
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hem
BTW I own land that has hunting and not only is vandalism (wire cutters) and dumping (like dead dogs in my pump pond) an issue but so is liability. I was told to carry insurance to protect myself from trespassers who hurt themselves on my land.
 
FYI, background, so we can have an educated conversation. Even my experienced speculation may not have been correct. It appears even in the beginning they realized the problem but did not address it.

https://scholarship.law.uwyo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1549&context=land_water
So a lazy, greedy government acquiest (sic) to wealthy developers and nothing has changed since the 1860's except the private land owners are now blocking off access to public lands adjacent to theirs?
 
BTW I own land that has hunting and not only is vandalism (wire cutters) and dumping (like dead dogs in my pump pond) an issue but so is liability. I was told to carry insurance to protect myself from trespassers who hurt themselves on my land.
There's no protection via state law for you ?
(Sorry was meant as a question. Realized the question mark was missing )
 
Last edited:
Yes, frustrating. I don't remember the exact amount of public land landlocked by private in Montana but it is significant...and inaccessible legally.
Not certain monkey wrench gang tactics will help the cause.
They almost never do , But people do it because it’s thier only option in many cases due to lack of money. not the way to go but I get it.
 
Your example is not a corner hopping issue.
The deal in my case was if you could drive on the public road and get to the dead end you could legally access thousand of acres of public land. Some of the landowners with thier ten or twenty acre parcels tried to deny access to the public land for thier personal gains
 
Ok back to corner crossing. A lot of people think this is more a Wyoming/Montana issue but we have our checkerboards as well. This is just north of Moses Lake for example:Screenshot_20220220-162439.pngThe court ruling will have significant impact on something like 6 million land locked acres. Crossing my fingers this land is legally opened up for good.
 
As I understand it, you cannot step over a corner from public to public without technically trespassing on the private sections which make up the other two quarters of the corner. Even climbing a ladder is still trespassing i.e.trespassing through air space of private.
So even with survey pins a no-no.
Wyoming has language which suggests a crime has been committed based upon the intent of the persons doing the corner hopping.
Like I said, I haven't followed the case in Wyoming closely, but I think some guys got pissed and corner hopped during hunting season but without weapons, knowing they would get caught. In this case, I believe they were trying to push the envelope to test the legality of it all, and bring in some publicity.
 
As I understand it, you cannot step over a corner from public to public without technically trespassing on the private sections which make up the other two quarters of the corner. Even climbing a ladder is still trespassing i.e.trespassing through air space of private.
So even with survey pins a no-no.
Wyoming has language which suggests a crime has been committed based upon the intent of the persons doing the corner hopping.
Like I said, I haven't followed the case in Wyoming closely, but I think some guys got pissed and corner hopped during hunting season but without weapons, knowing they would get caught. In this case, I believe they were trying to push the envelope to test the legality of it all, and bring in some publicity.
What if you really suck your gut in and cross sideways?
 
I have crossed corners in WY under the watchful eye of the landowner because the corner was marked by the government. The other corners in the area could not be crossed, even using the GPS.

A lot of the checkerboard sections were previously railroad easements...the railroads in some areas sold the private sections.
 
Last edited:
Ok back to corner crossing. A lot of people think this is more a Wyoming/Montana issue but we have our checkerboards as well. This is just north of Moses Lake for example:View attachment 6114The court ruling will have significant impact on something like 6 million land locked acres. Crossing my fingers this land is legally opened up for good.
I wonder if we could get the state or Feds to stake the corners? Then there is no question, you can step over.
 
What if you really suck your gut in and cross sideways?
Mathematically a corner is a point, it has no size, no length, no width, so you can not pass over that point or a line projecting from the center of the earth through said point and into space without violating the space around it, because you have size.
 
As someone with 888 acres of private land in gmu 251, I am actually in favor of corner crossing and wish states would get a positive definition, in favor for the public. Our land locks out 473 acres of public land, that we are not taxed on, but only me and the other land owner have access. It is fucking stupid. Why popular public areas are becoming even more of a shit show during the general seasons. Same could be argued for steelhead minus the actual runs… but after this winter, mule deer and elk along the north central cascades will be hurting, big winter kill but that ain’t this thread.

Meow to put my private land owner hat on, fuck the public for trashing public land. It is disgusting how much refuse can be found along roads and trails these days and I am not that old. I recall much cleaner public lands while growing up and hunting/fishing in the mountains.
 
Back
Top