Montana FWP seeks public input on corner crossing access issue

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is asking residents to weigh in on corner crossing before the state’s wildlife commissioners take up one of Montana’s most contested access questions in Helena. The issue matters far beyond the backcountry: it can decide whether hunters, anglers and other outdoor users can reach public land that sits diagonally behind private parcels in Lewis and Clark County and across the state.

The Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission has placed the topic on its June 12 agenda at 8:00 a.m. at the Montana Heritage Center in Helena. Public comment for most agenda items closed May 21, but a separate window for late-added topics runs through June 7, and Zoom registration for public comment opened May 29 and closes at noon June 11. FWP says public participation is essential to its decision-making as it weighs possible next steps.

Corner crossing refers to moving between diagonally touching corners of public land without stepping on private ground. In practical terms, the fight is over whether that maneuver is a lawful way to reach isolated public parcels or a trespass that landowners can block. Montana FWP has said corner crossing remains unlawful in Montana and that wardens may cite people for trespassing if they are caught doing it. For adjacent landowners, the issue is about property rights and control over access. For hunters and anglers, it is about whether checkerboarded public land is truly usable or only visible on a map.

The stakes are large. Lt. Gov. Kristen Juras told lawmakers on May 13 that about 1.5 million acres of public land in Montana are locked behind private property, including about 871,000 acres that are corner-locked. A lawsuit filed May 14 in Lewis and Clark County District Court by Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and the Public Land & Water Access Association seeks to secure access to roughly that same 871,000-acre block and says the state’s position leaves too much public land effectively cut off.

The legal backdrop is still unsettled in Montana. The Tenth Circuit ruled in March 2025 in Iron Bar Holdings v. Cape that corner crossing does not violate federal law in its six-state jurisdiction when it is done without touching private land, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case. Montana falls in the Ninth Circuit, so that ruling does not directly control state law here. Montana also has no state law or case law squarely addressing corner crossing, despite a 2013 bipartisan effort to legalize it that died in the House and a 2017 proposal to ban it that never reached committee.