I know mountains are kind of big, but there are privately owned chunks of land that are really big – like Texas cattle ranches and Australian sheep farms and such. And there are differing definitions of what exactly makes a high chunk of ground a ‘mountain’ and at what point the slope of the sides becomes flattened out enough that you can say 'one step to the left here and you’re on Mt. Whatever but one step to the right you’re only on some foothill.
Despite those complications, are there any mountains that are totally on land legally owned by one person (or maybe a family trust)?
Note: I want to rule out cases where the mountain is considered to be part of a nation’s lands and that nation is sorta ‘owned’ by a king or duke or tsar or whatever and thus that person ‘owns’ the mountain.
What I want to know is if Sam Walton or Elon Musk or some petro megabillionaire owns a piece of land that completely contains what is considered to be a mountain.
Bonus question: Does any one person/family own a sea?
There is the case of White Island, the volcano on which erupted 3-4 years back. It’s privately owned - once up on a time by one man but after his death by his family trust.
The Cielo Vista Ranch in Colorado includes Culebra Peak, one of Colorado’s “14ers” – i.e. a mountain that exceeds 14,000 feet of elevation. The property was purchased by the heir to a Texas oil fortune in 2017. I’ve seen it claimed that Culebra is the highest privately owned mountain in the world but I have no way to confirm that.
Due to the checkerboard pattern of public and private land in a lot of the US west, there are mountains that in essence are private due to the crackdown on “corner crossing”. I have a thread about this here:
One particular case I highlight is Elk Mountain in Wyoming. That mountain is nearly private since the primary private owner is shutting down corner crossing and even helicopters and planes dropping on the public sections (sections are one square mile). Here is a gifted NYTimes article about it:
In Australia the size of the property can be of lesser importance than the size of the mountain.
At one stage in the 1880s part of my family owned a grazing property which included Mount Wycheproof
The mountain is now part of the part of the township of Wycheproof (pop 600) sited in the green space between the Medical Centre and the swimming pool.
Mount Wycheproof is just 42 metres above the surrounding terrain and 147 metres above sea level. It is apparently the smallest registered mountain in the world.
Once of the neighboring properties had the more imposing Pyramid Hill, a granite outcrop rising 187m above sea level.
Thank you all for the replies! Interesting what the range of ‘mountain’ can be. Seriously, not even 50 meters above the surrounding terrain? And I think I vote no on the island volcanoes that barely break the surface of the water, regardless of how far above the sea floor.
An interesting coincidence is that I’ve come across ‘Corner crossing’ as a point in two different novels I’ve read in the past month, plus a couple of magazine/newspaper articles. It must be a really heating up controvery.
I’m also amazed at the listing of the Australian mountain for a mere half million! Location, location, location indeed.
How much would 250 acres of unimproved, bone dry, rocky, hot, scrubby land an hour’s drive from the nearest city, suitable only for low intensity grazing, with a hill on it cost where you are?
The Highlands of Scotland are both mountainous and owned by a small number of owners of large estates (c.500 people own half of Scotland), so most mountains are claimed by a single owner although there are increasing moves to support community ownership.
By way of example, King Charles III owns Lochnagar (1,155m) on the Royal Balmoral Estate.
Nearly the entire island of Lanai in Hawaii is owned by Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation fame, and it has a mountain of about 3,300 ft elevation. I am not sure if he owns the entire mountain, however - perhaps there is a public space at the top.
Well, I’m located in a Boston suburb. I don’t think there is ANY land that is unimproved, bone dry, etc. etc. anywhere around here. Maybe not in the entire state.
I googled a bit and found an undeveloped lot in Newton listed for $1.2 million, but it was just a hair under one quarter acre, so …
I was just bemused at the idea of owning 250 acres of land, including a rather down-sized mountain for an amount of money I could conceivably scrape together.
I haven’t checked lately, but land like you’re describing went for about $2K per acre in central Montana about 10-15 years ago. That means the 250 acres would be around a half-million dollars.
