Wild camping at the Gadenlouwisee

What changed, and it was not the law

On 29 July 2026 a reader photographed a board on the path up from Fuhren, in the forest below the alp. It is the notice of the Bäuertgemeinde Gadmen, and it says this:

"Die Bäuertgemeinde Gadmen hat in einer öffentlichen Publikation im Amtsblatt Nr. 25 vom 19. Juni 2026 ein generelles Campingverbot auf sämtlichem Grundeigentum erlassen [...] Das Campieren auf dem Grundeigentum der Bäuertgemeinde Gadmen wird per sofort und auf unbestimmte Zeit generell verboten."Board of the Bäuertgemeinde Gadmen on the approach path, photographed 29 July 2026. It cites the assembly resolution of 28 May 2026, and refers back to the corporation's forest regulation of 23 April 1987 and to art. 186 of the Criminal Code. A second, hand-written board screwed underneath shows a crossed-out tent, the words "auch ohne Zelt verboten" and the name GADENLOUWISEE.

A Bäuertgemeinde is a landowner, not a police authority. These Oberhasli corporations hold the forest and the alps, in the Bernese Gemeindegesetz they sit among the burgerliche Nutzungskörperschaften, and they administer their own property. They do not write criminal law. So the interesting question is not whether they may put up a board, which they clearly may, but what the board is: an owner's prohibition, a court order, or a public-law rule.⁸

The field test takes one glance. Does the notice name a court, a decision date by that court, a case number and a franc amount? A gerichtliches Verbot under art. 258 of the Civil Procedure Code has to, because it threatens a real penalty of up to CHF 2'000 and art. 259 requires it to be published and posted on the land. This board names none of the four. It names an assembly of the landowners and a gazette. It is an owner's notice.⁷

And there is no court order hiding behind it. Bernese gerichtliche Verbote are published in the cantonal gazette under their own rubric. Searched from 2019 to September 2026 for Gadmen and for Innertkirchen: nothing, on a search that returns 473 such publications for 2026 alone, so the empty result is a real absence rather than a broken query. The Bäuert notice itself is not in the cantonal gazette either, which is consistent with what the board says: it was published in the regional gazette, the Anzeiger Oberhasli, the weekly Friday paper that is the official publication organ of Guttannen, Hasliberg, Innertkirchen, Meiringen and Schattenhalb. Its issue 1 of 2025 is dated Friday 3 January, so issue 25 of 2026 falls on Friday 19 June 2026, exactly the date on the board.²³

What the notice can do, and what it cannot

The board leans on two instruments. Neither carries the ban it announces, and that matters, because a lot of people read "no fine" as "ignore it". It is not that.

The forest regulation of 23 April 1987 no longer exists. When the canton's forest act came into force on 1 January 1998, it repealed the old cantonal Forstgesetz of 1973, and with it every forest regulation issued under it:

"Die gestützt auf die bisherige Forstgesetzgebung erlassenen Waldreglemente werden mit dem Inkrafttreten dieses Gesetzes aufgehoben."Kantonales Waldgesetz (KWaG), BSG 921.11, of 5 May 1997, art. 55 para. 1. In force since 1 January 1998 by government decision no. 2686 of 19 November 1997. Art. 57 repeals the Forstgesetz of 1 July 1973 itself.

The cantonal forest act that replaced it says nothing whatever about tents, camping or bivouacs. It regulates public access (art. 21, forest is open within customary limits, and access may be restricted for named protective reasons through rest zones, reserves or barriers), events, riding and cycling (art. 22), and driving on forest roads (art. 23). Its penalty article carries a fine of up to CHF 20'000, and lists exactly four things: unauthorised events, riding or cycling off the paths, breaches of the rules on detrimental uses, and breaches of the government's rules on fire in the forest. Camping is in none of them, and the cantonal forest ordinance does not mention it either.⁴

Art. 186 of the Criminal Code needs an enclosure. It is the ordinary trespass provision, it is worth reading rather than assuming, and it is narrow:

"Wer gegen den Willen des Berechtigten in ein Haus, in eine Wohnung, in einen abgeschlossenen Raum eines Hauses oder in einen unmittelbar zu einem Hause gehörenden umfriedeten Platz, Hof oder Garten oder in einen Werkplatz unrechtmässig eindringt oder, trotz der Aufforderung eines Berechtigten, sich zu entfernen, darin verweilt, wird, auf Antrag, mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder Geldstrafe bestraft."Swiss Criminal Code, SR 311.0, art. 186 StGB, in force in this wording. Every alternative in the sentence is a building or an enclosed place belonging to one. An alp hut with a fenced yard is covered; the open pasture beyond the fence is not.

The lake is open ground at 2'155 m, an hour and a half above the last buildings. It is not a house, a dwelling, a closed room or an enclosed yard, so art. 186 does not reach a tent on that shore. Near the alp huts on the way up, it does.⁵

What is live is civil law, and it is enough. The Civil Code gives the owner the right to reclaim their property from anyone withholding it and to fend off any unjustified interference (art. 641 para. 2), and the possession rules let them remove you and call for official help (art. 926). Since 1 July 2026 there is more: art. 260a of the Civil Procedure Code lets a possessor ask a court for an order against an indeterminate group of people to clear a property, decided within five days and enforceable early. It orders removal rather than a fine, which is exactly the modern shape of an owner's no.⁶⁷

And the access right does not stretch to the night. Art. 699 of the Civil Code allows everyone to enter forest and pasture and to pick berries and mushrooms "in ortsüblichem Umfange". That is a right of access, and it is why the walk to the lake stays lawful and the board does not stop you going there. Sleeping is not access. It is use of somebody's ground, and the owner decides.⁶

The public-law file, rechecked in September and unchanged

Everything the first version of this article established still holds. It was rechecked on 3 September 2026, because a verdict that flips deserves a fresh look at the layers it used to rest on:

• Federal: queried again at LV95 2'670'223 / 1'174'812, 2'155 m. No hunting-ban district, no wildlife rest zone, no BLN object, no mire, floodplain or amphibian inventory, no park of national importance, nothing within 300 m either. A deliberately misspelled layer id returns an HTTP 400 rather than an empty result, and the control point in the Kiental hunting-ban district returns its hit, so the empty answer is a real absence.⁹
• Cantonal: Bern still has no camping or bivouac ordinance. The one norm that writes the word Biwakieren is the wildlife protection ordinance, annex 2 category F, and it applies to 87 named areas, none of them in the Gadmen, Gental, Susten or Innertkirchen area.¹⁰
• Communal: Innertkirchen still publishes no police regulation and no camping regulation. The building regulation, still not on the commune's website and still served by the cantonal cadastre, still has exactly one camping article, art. 445, which defines the campsite zone. The lake sits on parcel 30, in the Land- und Alpwirtschaftszone.¹¹

So the state has not banned anything here, and that is not the point any more. Public ground and private ground are different questions, and this lake was only ever a yes because nobody with the power to say no had said it. Now the owner has, generally, in advance, in the official gazette and on a board at the path, with the lake written on it by hand.

The reader who sent the photo added one more thing: there are herders on the alp who told him they have been instructed to photograph campers and report them. Treat that as what it is, word of mouth from the ground rather than a published policy, but it fits the rest. A criminal complaint for trespass would run into the enclosure problem above. Being photographed, moved on and dealt with as the person who ignored a signposted ban is not a legal problem you argue your way out of on a Saturday evening at 2'155 m.

Which is why the verdict is "not allowed" rather than "illegal". Illegal would need a norm, an article and a sanction that reaches a bivouac, and there is none. Not allowed is the accurate description of ground whose owner has refused, in the one legal system where the absence of a state prohibition never was a permission to use somebody else's land.

Where you can legally sleep

• Camping Gadmen, Obermad, 3863 Gadmen, +41 33 975 12 30, open from the end of April to the end of September. The authorised site in the same valley, one kilometre from Gadmen towards the Sustenpass, and beyond any argument¹¹.
• The huts and inns along the Sustenpass road and in the Gental, if you want a roof rather than a pitch.
• Not the Gadenlouwisee. The walk up stays lawful, the night does not. The ban covers all the property of the Bäuertgemeinde Gadmen, its extent is not something you can read off a public map, and the board names this lake explicitly.
• The one door left is the owner's own yes, and it has been refused in advance and for an indefinite period. If you want to ask anyway, the Bäuertgemeinde Gadmen is listed with its officers in the commune's own organisation directory¹. Ask the corporation, not the alp staff, and take a no for an answer.

General rules for wild camping

This applies wherever you sleep outside. At a spot that has just been closed by the people who own it, it applies double: the fastest way to lose the next one is to make the last ban look justified.

• 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 September 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.

This spot was published as legal for a single night on 29 July 2026, on a statute check that was correct and that still returns the same result today. It was regraded to not allowed on 3 September 2026, on a photograph of the landowner's notice taken on 29 July 2026 and passed to us by a reader. The change is a landowner's decision rather than a change in the law, and it is the one layer a statute check cannot anticipate.

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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.

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