About 240 years ago, as white settlers started making their way west, the federal government began divvying up vast swaths of territory into 640-acre squares, some of which it gave to the newly formed states to fund schools and, later, to the railroads to spur industrialization. Others it sold to private owners. Millions of acres never found buyers, however, and agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management stepped in to administer the terrain. Today, much of it is open for hunting, fishing, and exploration, but there are thousands of public parcels that recreationists have no way to access.
That’s because they’re corner-locked, meaning they’re surrounded by a checkerboard of private property (think: farms and ranches) and only touch other squares of government land at their corners. Until recently, finding…