Why It Matters
For hunters, hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts across Montana and the broader Mountain West, the question of corner-crossing — stepping between adjoining corners of public land separated by private property — has major implications for access to millions of acres of public land. The legal landscape remains unsettled, and the outcome could reshape how Montanans recreate on publicly owned terrain for generations.
What Happened
Montana’s Lieutenant Governor Kristen Juras brought a new dimension to the corner-crossing debate when she presented to the Environmental Quality Council, a committee of state lawmakers and citizens focused on environmental policy. Juras, who previously taught property law at the University of Montana, argued that corner-crossing constitutes trespass through a landowner’s airspace — and she used a recently enacted drone law to make her case.
At the center of her argument is Montana Senate Bill 493, passed in 2025, which established that drone pilots flying below 200 feet over private land without the owner’s consent can face criminal trespass charges. Juras contended that the law effectively defines a 200-foot airspace buffer as private property belonging to the surface owner — and that the same principle applies to anyone crossing the corner of two public land parcels.
“You have recognized a buffer zone of at least 200 feet as being the private property of the surface owner,” Juras told the committee, referring to the legislature’s drone legislation.
She further relied on the “heaven to hell” doctrine, a longstanding legal concept establishing that a landowner’s rights extend from the surface upward into the airspace above it. Juras argued that this doctrine means a corner-crosser who steps through the airspace above private land is, legally, trespassing — regardless of whether their feet touch the ground.
Wyoming Case and Supreme Court Silence
Juras also addressed a high-profile Wyoming lawsuit in which a federal appellate court ruled in favor of four elk hunters who had corner-crossed to reach public land. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up that case. Juras argued the Court’s pass should not be read as an endorsement of the lower court’s ruling.
“They want this to percolate a little longer at the circuit-court level before they’re going to take it up,” she said.
Crucially, she noted that Montana falls under a different federal circuit than Wyoming, meaning the appellate ruling that favored the hunters carries no binding authority in Montana. She also discussed the Unlawful Enclosures Act — a 141-year-old federal statute that barred landowners from blocking public access to public land — which figured prominently in the Wyoming litigation, but argued its applicability in Montana remains an open legal question.
Not all committee members were persuaded. Sen. Pat Flowers, a Democrat from Belgrade, acknowledged Juras’s legal expertise while pushing back on the presentation’s one-sidedness. He urged the council to hear opposing legal arguments to give lawmakers a more complete view of how the issue might unfold in court.
By the Numbers
- 8.3 million acres of “corner-locked” public land identified nationally in a widely cited 2022 mapping report
- 871,000 acres of that corner-locked land located in Montana
- 200 feet — the airspace buffer established under Montana’s drone trespass law
- Nearly 60% of Montana voters in a 2025 poll said corner-crossing should be made explicitly legal
- 7% of respondents said it should remain illegal
Zoom Out
Corner-crossing has become one of the most contested public-land access issues in the West, drawing interest from sportsmen’s groups, property rights advocates, and state governments from Montana to New Mexico. The checkerboard land pattern — a legacy of 19th-century railroad land grants — leaves vast tracts of federal land effectively inaccessible without crossing private property. As digital mapping tools have made the scale of the problem visible to everyday outdoorsmen, pressure on state legislatures to provide legal clarity has intensified.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has maintained that corner-crossing remains unlawful in the state. Meanwhile, two Democratic lawmakers are drafting legislation to explicitly legalize the practice, with a proposal expected before lawmakers when the legislature reconvenes in January.
What’s Next
The Environmental Quality Council is expected to continue examining the legal dimensions of corner-crossing access ahead of the next legislative session. Whether the committee recommends legislation — and whether a bill legalizing the practice can gain traction in a Republican-controlled legislature — remains to be seen. Property rights concerns carry significant weight among rural Montana voters, and any proposal will need to balance landowner interests against broad public support for expanded access to public land.
For more on how state and local policy decisions affect Montana and Idaho property owners, see our recent coverage of how new opt-in property tax laws are hitting mobile home owners with unexpected spikes.
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