Working Ranch Magazine Summer 2025

trespassers even if they’re on public land, and instructing them to leave. “Consistent with its policy, Iron Bar’s property manager found the hunters on public land and requested that they leave the area,” the opinion states. “The hunters refused, so the man ager contacted law enforcement. The responding sheriff, however, did not issue a warning or citation after the

corner-crossers,” the opinion notes. The ranch had placed no trespass ing signs on T-posts on either side of the corner markers and added a chain between the posts. The hunters couldn’t squeeze between the T-posts to cross. Undeterred, they grabbed one of the posts and swung around it. Iron Bar Holdings has a stated practice of confronting suspected

n a case watched by both land owners in the West and hunting and outdoor recreation groups, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on March 18, 2025, upheld a lower court decision that clarifies tres pass where private and public land join at the corners. The case involves Iron Bar Holdings, which owns Elk Mountain Ranch in Wyoming, and four hunters. Elk Mountain Ranch spans 50 square miles and interspersed in that area are 27 federal and state public parcels totaling 11,000 acres. The events leading up to the law suit began in 2020 when hunters from Missouri went to Elk Mountain to hunt. Using onX Hunt, a GPS app identifying land ownership boundar ies, the hunters made their way to the corners where public land and Iron Bar’s private land met. Once the hunters found the steel corner marker, they crossed from one public parcel to another. “The hunters never made contact with the surface of Iron Bar’s land, but they did momen tarily occupy its airspace,” according to the 10th Circuit Court opinion. There is a legal precedent that land owners own the airspace above their property to a certain height. “Iron Bar is not friendly to

TRESPASS THE TANGLED TRAIL TO CORNER CROSSING Court of Appeals affirms right of public to cross at corners where public and private land meet. BY BURT RUTHERFORD

GERALD ZAFFUTS/ADOBE

64 I SUMMER 2025 WORKING RANCH audited readers run 21 million head of beef cattle.