Wild camping at the Augstmatthorn: partial protection, total tent ban

One missing clause decides the whole ridge

Wild camping at the Augstmatthorn is settled by federal law, and by a detail of drafting that is easy to miss and expensive to get wrong.

What the point returns. Queried on 12 August 2026 at LV95 2'637'445 / 1'176'902, WGS84 46.742261 N / 7.928616 E, 2'136.4 m: the federal hunting-ban inventory returns object no. 1, Augstmatthorn, 2'011.7 hectares. Everything else is empty: no wildlife rest zone, no BLN landscape, no mire, floodplain, dry-meadow or amphibian object, no forest reserve, no park of national importance. A positive control at LV95 2'626'000 / 1'154'500 returns game reserve no. 3 Kiental, and an invalid-layer control returns HTTP 400 rather than an empty set, so both the hit and the misses are real.¹

The object sheet, and the phrase that misleads. The federal sheet for object no. 1 describes a protected area in the Bernese Prealps north-west of Lake Brienz, names capercaillie, black grouse and ptarmigan as specially protected, and states plainly: "Für das ganze Gebiet gelten die partiellen Schutzbestimmungen." Whole area, partial protection provisions. Read that on a phone at the trailhead and you will conclude that some rules are relaxed. Some are. Not this one.²

"Das freie Zelten und Campieren ist verboten. Vorbehalten bleibt die Benutzung offizieller Zeltplätze. Die Kantone können Ausnahmen bewilligen."Verordnung über die eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebiete (VEJ), SR 922.31, art. 5 para. 1 lit. e.

Now read the article around it. Lit. e, the camping provision, applies to game reserves full stop: there is no reference to integral or partial protection anywhere in it. The immediately neighbouring lit. d, on the carrying of weapons, does contain the qualifier, excepting "Gebiete mit partiellem Schutz" in as many words. Two adjacent letters of the same paragraph, one with the carve-out and one without. That is not an oversight, it is a choice, and it means the tent ban at the Augstmatthorn is exactly as strong as it would be in a fully protected reserve.³

What it costs. The number to know is CHF 150, the fixed penalty under annex 2 no. 12005 of the Fixed Penalties Ordinance, which tariffs "Freies Zelten oder Campieren in eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebieten" and cites the hunting act and the VEJ article together. You will also see CHF 20'000 quoted for this offence; that is the ceiling of art. 18 para. 1 of the hunting act in ordinary criminal proceedings, and it is not what a camper is handed on a Sunday morning. Quoting it as the fine overstates the reality by a factor of more than a hundred.⁴

And nobody local can let you off. The last sentence of lit. e reserves exceptions to the cantons. Not to the commune, not to the alp, not to the landowner. Wherever else in Switzerland a word with the Senn changes the answer, here it does not.³

Below the federal layer there is nothing to add. The cadastral parcel under the summit is small, 44'280 m², and carries a base designation, a groundwater protection area and a hazard indication, none of which speaks to sleeping outside. Canton Bern's wildlife protection ordinance, which does ban camping and bivouacking inside its own listed areas, does not list this one, and the federal wildlife-rest-zone portal is empty here too.⁵¹

The ground is good, and all of it is inside

Here is the part that makes this spot genuinely frustrating rather than merely closed, and it is worth stating plainly because the map will tempt you.

The terrain is excellent. Sampled on the federal model over an 800-metre box, the summit point itself runs at 10.1 degrees, but there is 1.3 degrees at 2'109.7 metres just 180 metres from the top, and 4.2 degrees at 2'101.3 metres a little further on. On the Brienzergrat, which is mostly a knife of grass and limestone, that is a genuinely inviting bivouac shelf. It is also entirely inside the reserve.⁶

That also disposes of the usual fallback. The Alpine Club's guidance for a single considerate night applies above the treeline and outside protected areas, and this whole ridge is a protected area. Height is not the argument here, the perimeter is.⁷

What you can do instead. Walk it by day, which nothing in the reserve prevents: the Brienzergrat traverse is one of the finest ridge walks in the country and the reserve rules are about camping, weapons and disturbance, not about your boots. Sleep in the valley, or carry the night to a ridge that is not inventoried. If you want a Bernese spot this site has already checked and cleared, the neighbouring massifs are a mixed bag, and the honest advice is to check before you go rather than assume the next summit along is free: the Hohgant, 8 kilometres north-west, is closed too, by a cantonal rule that names the bivouac itself.

The place

Summit: WGS84 46.742261 N / 7.928616 E, LV95 2'637'445 / 1'176'902, 2'136.4 m on the federal terrain model, commune of Oberried am Brienzersee, canton Bern, on the Brienzergrat above the north shore of Lake Brienz. The reserve polygon spans roughly 2'633'400 to 2'641'700 east and 1'173'900 to 1'182'400 north, so it covers the ridge and both flanks over some eight kilometres.¹

Two things the object sheet asks of visitors that have nothing to do with sleeping, and that are worth honouring anyway. Capercaillie, black grouse and ptarmigan are singled out for protection, and all three are birds that a person walking off the path in the dark will flush at exactly the wrong moment. And the sheet asks for chamois and ibex numbers to be held rather than allowed to rise, which tells you this is a managed population rather than a wilderness.²

One thing I will not pretend to settle: what a warden does on any given evening. Enforcement is not something I can measure and I am not going to invent it. What I can tell you is that the rule is federal, current, unqualified, and priced, which is a different situation from the many Swiss spots where the honest answer is that nobody has written anything down.

Where you can legally sleep

• Nowhere on the ridge itself, in any month: the whole area is inside federal game reserve no. 1 and lit. e carries no seasonal or zonal exception³.
• Beyond the reserve edge, 1'101 m east of the summit, where you are already down at about 1'177 m and dropping into the forest belt, and where ordinary Swiss rules and the landowner's word take over⁶.
• Valley beds around Oberried and Brienz, which is the realistic answer for anyone walking the Brienzergrat.
• Not on a landowner's say-so: only the canton can permit an exception inside a federal game reserve³.

General rules for wild camping

None of this makes the Augstmatthorn legal, and the list below is not a way to be discreet about a federal offence. Carry it to the ridges where you actually may sleep out, and carry it especially where ground-nesting birds are the reason a place is protected at all.

• No fire. An open fire has no place in the mountains. A gas stove is enough.
• Pitch late, strike early. Set up towards evening, gone again early. A bivouac is one night, not a base camp.
• Leave no rubbish. Everything you carry up you carry down, organic scraps and toilet paper included.
• At least 50 metres from any water for the big business, so you do not foul what people and livestock drink.
• Stay small and quiet. A small group, no speaker, no drone, dogs on the lead, and the alp staff's word goes.

Disclaimer

This article reflects my research and assessment to the best of my knowledge, as of August 2026. It is based on the publicly accessible and official sources linked below. It does not replace legal advice and is not a binding statement of the current legal situation.

The verdict rests on a federal ordinance and on an inventory perimeter, both of which can be amended, and on geodata queried on 12 August 2026. Distances are accurate to the published polygon rather than to a marker on the ground, and the reserve boundary is not signed continuously in the terrain, so treat the 1'101 metres as an order of magnitude and not as a line to walk up to. Before every tour, check the current sources yourself and follow the signs on site. A genuine emergency bivouac in distress is a separate question from a planned camp. Anyone who spends the night outside bears responsibility for their own conduct and any consequences themselves. Hikebeast, Leon Helg and Saftladen GmbH accept no liability for decisions made on the basis of this text, and call on no one to break applicable law.

Frequently asked questions

Leon Helg

Swiss filmmaker and software developer. Spends his free time in the Swiss Alps and maps his favourite spots for Hikebeast. Posts as @leon.helg on Instagram and TikTok.

Swiss Guide Wildcamping Checker Color Grading