Corner Crossing: Can You Do It This Fall?

 

What Wyoming’s New Bill Really Means for Hunters

 

Editor’s Note: Eastmans’ Hunting Journals is not a legal authority, we aim to provide information about current topics in the western hunting sphere. Be sure to know what is and is not legal in the state/s you are hunting. Ignorance is no excuse and your fate rests upon the decisions you make.  

 

For years, corner crossing has been the most debated move a hunter could make in Wyoming. Do you step over that invisible line where two pieces of public land touch at a corner, or do you stay put to avoid a trip to court?

This spring, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals finally gave hunters some breathing room. They ruled that moving from one square of federal public land to another, without touching private ground, is not trespassing. The case that most folks have heard about by now came out of Carbon County, where a group of hunters used a ladder to step between two chunks of Bureau of Land Management land at the corner of Elk Mountain.

That ruling unlocked the door to millions of acres of corner-locked public land in Wyoming alone, with even more across the other states in the Tenth Circuit. Those other states are Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Kansas, and Oklahoma. It did NOT inherently legalize corner crossing in any other states.

But here’s where it gets tricky: this ruling is about federal-to-federal corner crossing. The judges didn’t say anything about stepping from state trust land to federal, or from one random piece of state ground to another. And they definitely didn’t touch on private-to-private situations. Those questions are still a fog bank of uncertainty. To emphasize this point, the history of the Unlawful Inclosures Act of 1885, which was used to back this decision, is about federal land. 

Wyoming’s State Bill: Putting It in Black and White

Lawmakers in Cheyenne didn’t waste any time writing their own state’s version of a law backing up the decision. The Corner Crossing Clarification bill passed out of committee on a 7–6 vote last week during the Joint Travel, Wildlife, Recreation, Wildlife, and Cultural Resources Interim Committee Meeting. If it passes in the 2026 legislative session, it could codify this new reality directly into Wyoming law.

Here’s what the draft does:

Criminal Trespass: Says you aren’t trespassing when you step corner to corner between public parcels, as long as you don’t damage private land.

Game & Fish Trespass: Clarifies that this doesn’t count as “traveling through private” for hunting purposes unless you actually set foot on private ground.

Importantly, this State drafted bill also would apply to land owned by a local government, the State of Wyoming or federal government. If this were to pass, hunters would have Wyoming statutes to point to instead of relying only on the court case to back corner crossing access.

The Grey Areas Still Linger

Even with this bill, there are questions hunters need to keep in mind. The Elk Mountain case, and the court ruling that came from it, was strictly about federal-to-federal access. If you’re trying to step from a block of BLM into a state school section, or from state land into Forest Service, no court has said that’s legal yet.

Groups like Backcountry Hunters & Anglers want the Legislature to go further by spelling out an affirmative right to corner cross onto any kind of public land, not just carve out an exception from trespass. Without that, some wardens or landowners could still argue the law doesn’t cover those situations.

What Hunters Should Expect This Fall

Heading into the 2025 season, here’s what this all means when you’re out in the checkerboard:

Federal to federal crossing is on solid ground. The court said it. The state bill is lining up behind it. If you cross carefully at the corner post/survey marker without touching private dirt, you’re legal.

Other scenarios are murky. Federal to State? State to State? That hasn’t been tested, and it’s not what this case or bill is about. Walk into those situations with caution.

It’s not a green light to stomp around. The draft bill only protects you if you don’t damage adjacent private property. Breaking or even touching a fence, cutting wire, or leaving ruts will still get you in hot water.

Looking Ahead

There’s always a chance the U.S. Supreme Court takes another swing at this, which could shift the rules again. Iron Bar Holdings (the suing landowner on Elk Mountain) has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 10th Circuit ruling. They argue it tramples on State trespass laws and invades private airspace. Basically, they suggest that the Unlawful Inclosures Act ruling goes too far. 

In this case, the justices are expected to rule on the requests to review the lower court’s decision in mid-October at the earliest. If the review is granted, then a person could expect oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court by the first quarter of 2026, with a ruling months later, likely the next summer.

But for now, Wyoming hunters finally have a clearer footing when it comes to one of the longest-running debates in the West.

Just remember: this isn’t a blanket “right to roam.” It’s a narrow ruling—focused on federal-to-federal corners. The rest of the checkerboard parcels? That’s still up for interpretation until a bill or further challenges clear the air.