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A federal appeals court ruled in favor of a group of hunters accused of trespassing when they “corner crossed” over a private ranch.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeal’s long-awaited ruling came down on March 18, upholding a lower court’s finding in 2023 that the hunters were within their rights to step over the airspace of private land as they accessed parcels of federal public land.

The case dates back to hunting trips in 2020 and 2021 in Elk Mountain. A group from Missouri built a ladder to step over the corner of a private ranch while they accessed Bureau of Land Management parcels.

The ranch owner said they trespassed his airspace and sued. The hunters argued private landowners can’t make public lands inaccessible.

The appeals court agreed. “The Hunters could corner-cross as long as they did not physically touch Iron Bar’s land,” the three-member court wrote in a unanimous decision.

The practice is widely used by hunters and recreators across the West, where vast areas of land retain the checkerboard ownership pattern that emerged in the 1800s as railroads were granted every other square-mile parcel and the federal government held onto the others.

One study by the GPS map app onX found that more than 8 million acres of public land across the West are corner-locked, meaning they’re inaccessible if not for hopping the corner of private land. Tens of thousands of corner points exist throughout the region.

Conservation and environmental justice groups are celebrating the decision after filing a “friend of the court” brief siding with the hunters last year.

“This ruling ensures public access to millions of acres of corner-locked public lands in Wyoming, and facilitates wildlife management, supports ecological research, and deepens people's connection with the landscape,” said Dagny Signorelli, Wyoming director of Western Watersheds Project. “This is a key win in the battle to keep public lands in public hands.”