75K Acres Of Public Areas In CA Are Blocked By Private Land: Report

More than 75,000 acres of public land in California are effectively "landlocked" — meaning they're completely surrounded by private property with no legal route of access, according to an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle.

These parcels, ranging across both rural and ubran counties, from Siskiyou to San Diego, are managed by agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management, but are impossible for the public to access, the newspaper reported.

A striking example is a 700-acre parcel near Atlas Peak in Napa County, which is technically usable for hiking, camping and hunting, but it's unreachable without private permission, the Chronicle reported.

However, many do attempt to access such lands by "corner-crossing," where one might step diagonally from one public parcel corner to another. In California, the legality of this practice remains uncertain. If corner-crossing is ruled illegal, inaccessible public land could balloon to 530,000 acres statewide, according to an analysis conducted by the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and hunting app "onX."

The practice was disputed in a high-profile case between hunters and a ranch owner in Wyoming earlier this year. But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that corner-crossing was legal under the federal Unlawful Inclosures Act, which protects access to public lands.

The San Francisco Chronicle created a map of California’s “landlocked” public lands by analyzing state land data and road maps, then flagging parcels without road access that are surrounded by private property. Check it out here.

Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle ‘Landlocked’ California: Map shows all the public areas made inaccessible by private property