Inside America’s most breathtaking state park that almost NO ONE is allowed to visit despite its oasis of rolling hills and idyllic stretch dubbed ‘Peace Valley’… as debate rages about public access

America’s most inaccessible state park remains nearly impossible to visit more than two decades after California bought it, because it’s still surrounded by private land that no one is willing to sell.

The state spent $3 million on 1,800 acres north of Sutter Buttes in 2003 with the goal of safeguarding one of the most spectacular and historic landscapes in the country.

The extinct volcanic lava field was sacred to Native Americans and played a key role in the 19th-century plot to seize California from Mexico.

But every road leading to the park is privately owned, some owned by families who have lived on the land for almost 200 years.

“The state will buy whatever we want to sell,” landowner Marty Steidlmayer told the newspaper LA times. “But that’s the last thing my family would ever do.”

Sutter County Board Supervisor Mat Conant, right, said the land rights of families who have owned adjacent land for 200 years are more important than public access

Photos of the park in the Sacramento Valley adorn the California State Parks website – right below a long-standing message that reads: “The park is currently CLOSED.”

The area was first designated as a public park in the 1920s when National Park Service founder Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. added it to a list of potential locations.

The only public access is provided by a trust that offers heavily guided hiking tours for $35 per person on land adjacent to the state park.

“It’s absolutely beyond me why it’s not open,” said Francis Coats, who received death threats when he tried to visit the 160 acres his family has owned for decades on the north side of South Butte.

The area was first designated as a public park in the 1920s when National Park Service founder Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. added it to a list of potential locations.

Volcanic spiers reach 2,000 feet into the sky over a 10-mile area that has been called “the world’s smallest mountain range.”

Lakes and green meadows lie in the heart of an area known as ‘Peace Valley’, dotted with drystone walls.

Sacred to the Maidu people for thousands of years, it was used as a hideout by Kit Carson and General John C. Fremont as they fomented unrest in California over Mexican rule in the 1840s.

Landowners began offering limited private tours as pressure for public access grew in the 1970s and a manager was hired who lived happily in a cabin on the property with his wife, dog and cat until the cat was snatched by an eagle.

Historian Walt Anderson said that once people see the Buttes in person, ‘they’re hooked’

The landscape was formed by volcanic eruptions between 1.35 and 1.6 million years ago

“Some places just draw us more strongly than others,” said historian Walt Anderson. “I mean, everyone loves the profile of the buttes when they pass by, but once they get in, I mean, they’re hooked.”

The county Board of Supervisors managed to keep the area completely private until 2003, when 1,785 acres went on the market and was snapped up by the state.

The Parks Department had a successful track record of building state parks from individual land purchases spread over years or even decades.

The State Park and Recreation Commission declared the 1,785-acre area a park in 2005, but nearly two decades later it remains as inaccessible as it was.

The county Board of Supervisors managed to keep the area completely private until 2003, when 1,785 acres went on the market and was snapped up by the state.

Steidlmayer claimed the department would “let people in for free and unattended” if they could cause irreparable damage to the landscape.

“This little blob in the middle of the Sacramento Valley is so susceptible to encroachment,” he added.

The Sutter County Board led the campaign to keep the land private in the 1970s, when Supervisor J.A. Bagley promised, “We will fight them to the hilt.”

And his successor Mat Conant told the LA Times that the fight continues today.

“It is more important to protect those land rights,” he said.

But only sheep and cattle have routine access to the spectacular landscape

The site served as a hideout for Kit Carson and General John C. Fremont while they dealt with the unrest in California over Mexican rule in the 1840s.

“Some families have owned that land for almost 200 years.”

The department said it “continues to explore opportunities to secure land or grant easements to provide access.”

But former department head Ruth Coleman said it may have to be more imaginative if the public ever wants to see the park it spent money on.

“It’s classified as a state park. And a state park has access,” she said. “I’ve been there, it’s magical.”