Wild camping in Central Switzerland

Two written permissions, not just an absence of bans. Obwalden's GDB 971.4 Art. 8 expressly allows a one-night tent, and in Uri the dominant landowner, Korporation Uri, states that camping on its ground is permitted in principle. Elsewhere you argue from silence. Here you can quote something.

Uri: the landowner said yes in advance

Uri has no general cantonal camping ban, which alone puts it in the permissive half of the country. What makes it unusual is the second layer. Korporation Uri, a centuries-old commoners' corporation that owns a very large share of the canton's alpine ground, states that camping on its land is permitted in principle, and asks for notification only above three nights or ten people.²

That turns the usual question inside out. In most cantons the landowner is the person you have to find and ask. In Uri, on Korporation ground, the answer has already been given, in public, in advance.

Two communes are carved out of it, and both are worth knowing: Goeschenen forbids wild camping outright, and Silenen forbids it around the Seewlisee, with an exception only by prior permit. The same page also asks that the rules of nature and landscape protection zones be respected, and that pasture be treated with care.² It is not a licence to do anything. The permission is written for the ordinary case, one night, a small group, no trace. And where an alp is worked and serviced, like the Spilauersee with its huts and alp bar, the honest move is still to pitch back from the buildings and say a word to the Senn.

Obwalden put it in the statute

Obwalden went further than almost any canton. Its camping act starts strict: Art. 6 says pitching a tent outside an authorised campsite is not permitted. Then Art. 8, headed Einmaliges Uebernachten, writes the single night back in: a tent may be pitched without a permit outside authorised campsites, provided no public or private interests are impaired, and at your own risk. Not a tolerated grey area, an express written exception.¹

This is why the Eisee above Giswil is the lawful alternative we point people to when the Brienzer Rothorn summit, just across the cantonal boundary in Bern, turns out to be prohibited by a communal reglement at up to CHF 5,000. Same ridge, one boundary, opposite answers.

Where it goes wrong: communes and reserves

The cantonal picture being friendly does not mean the region is open. Every prohibition we found in Central Switzerland is communal or reserve-based, and they are sharp-edged.

In Schwyz nothing in cantonal law fines a camper, but the Arth Schutzverordnung prohibits camping in a named protected object at the Gnipen. In Luzern the Schwarzenberg building regulation bans a tent in a landscape protection zone at the Widderfeld. On the Rigi a cantonal plant-protection reserve runs within metres of the summit and camping inside it is forbidden. Being straight about these three: none of the communal texts is published anywhere we could reach, so the figures and article numbers live in the individual spot reports and are not repeated here as if we had read them.

Nidwalden is the subtle one. We enumerated 400 cantonal acts and the word Biwak appears in none of them, but the canton reportedly issues an information sheet asking for the landowner's consent. We have not read that sheet ourselves; it is cited in the Buochserhorn spot report. It would not be a statute in any case, only the position the authorities take.

How it plays out

Five spots researched in full. The two legal ones are legal for different reasons, and both reasons are written down.

• SpilauerseeLegal

  Uri has no general ban and Korporation Uri pre-permits camping on its ground for a single night. A serviced alp though, so pitch back from the buildings.

• ChaiserstuelLegal

  A verified federal absence plus the same blanket pre-permission from Korporation Uri. The pin sits on the Uri side of the summit, so the Obwalden and Nidwalden rules do not apply.

• BuochserhornIt depends

  400 Nidwalden acts enumerated with no bivouac rule among them, but the canton's own Merkblatt asks for the landowner's consent, and the alp belongs to a named corporation.

• Rigi KulmIt depends

  Nothing prohibits camping at the pin, but the plant-protection reserve boundary runs a few metres away, the landowner is a 14th-century corporation, and the only flat ground belongs to the hotel and the transmitter.

• GnipenIllegal

  A rare complete case: named object in the Arth Schutzverordnung, a named prohibition, a named penalty article and a ceiling, all recorded in the spot report rather than read here. A real ban on a real orchid meadow.