Wild camping at the Gadenlouwisee: everything checks out except one document

What is settled, and it is most of it

Wild camping at the Gadenlouwisee comes down to three layers of Swiss law, and two and a half of them are answered. Here is each one, with what was actually checked, because an absence is only worth something if you can name what you looked at.

Federal. Queried at the exact point on 29 July 2026: no hunting-ban district, no wildlife rest zone, no BLN landscape, no mire, floodplain or amphibian object, no park of national importance, no UNESCO site, and no building zone. Two controls make that absence meaningful rather than a broken query. A positive control at the Bachalpsee returns hunting-ban district no. 4 Schwarzhorn as expected. An invalid-layer control, a deliberately misspelled layer id, returns an HTTP error rather than an empty result, which is the trap that turns a typo into a false all-clear.¹

Cantonal. Bern has no camping or bivouac ordinance of its own. It has exactly one norm that uses the word Biwakieren, and it is worth quoting because it is the counter-argument to reading a bivouac into any bare mention of Campieren:

"Freies/wildes Campieren und Biwakieren sind verboten."Verordnung über den Wildtierschutz (WTSchV), BSG 922.63, of 26 February 2003, in force since 1 May 2003, Annex 2, category F. It applies only inside the wildlife protection areas listed in that annex.

Annex 2 runs to 183 pages and lists 28 areas. I read the list. There is no area in the Gadmen, Gental, Susten or Innertkirchen area. The nearest in the same valley system is no. 13 Grimsel, and its measures are only category A (hunting ban), category E (dogs on the lead) and category F limited to drones. It carries no camping provision at all, so even if the perimeter reached this far, which it does not, nothing would follow for a bivouac.²

Communal, first half. Innertkirchen publishes 35 reglemente and verordnungen. I went through both pages of the list. There is no Polizeireglement and no Camping-Reglement. That matters, because in this canton the communal camping ban usually lives in exactly one of those two: Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen each have a Camping-Reglement, Brienz has it in its police regulation. Innertkirchen has neither instrument.³

The one thing I could not check, and why I am not guessing

Which leaves the building regulation. Innertkirchen's own page says this, and it is the whole reason this article has no verdict:

"Die Einwohnergemeinde Innertkirchen verfügt seit der Gemeindefusion mit Gadmen nach wie vor über zwei Baureglemente. Die Baureglemente sind nicht online abrufbar!"Gemeinde Innertkirchen, Reglemente, page on the Baureglement: since the merger with Gadmen the commune still has two building regulations, and they are not available online. They can be requested by telephone or email.

Gadmen merged into Innertkirchen on 1 January 2014, and the Gadenlouwisee lies on what was Gadmen ground. So the document that governs this lake is the Gadmen Baureglement, and it is the one I cannot read.

Why that is not a formality. A building regulation sounds like it should only be about buildings, and usually it is. But it is not always: in Klosters, the communal camping ban sits in Art. 100 of the Baugesetz and nowhere else, and anyone who checked only the police regulation there would have concluded, wrongly, that camping was unregulated. I am not going to make the mirror-image mistake here and declare a spot open because I read every document except the one I could not download.

Two things I can tell you about the setting while that question is open. The lake sits at 2'155 m, well above the treeline, on the Gadmen side of the Sustenpass road. Where no rule prohibits it, the Swiss Alpine Club's position on a single considerate night above the treeline is the usual reference point, and it is guidance rather than law.⁴ And Swiss access law lets you walk there but not sleep there: ZGB Art. 699 opens forest and pasture to everyone within customary limits, which is a right of entry, never a right to spend the night.⁵

The honest state of the file

Set out plainly, so you can weigh it yourself rather than take my word:

• Federal layer: checked, empty, with a positive control and an invalid-layer control. Settled.
• Cantonal layer: checked. No Bernese camping ordinance exists; the one norm naming Biwakieren covers 28 named areas and none of them is here. Settled.
• Communal police regulation: checked. Innertkirchen does not have one. Settled.
• Communal building regulation (Gadmen): not readable. Not published online, obtainable only on request. Open.

If the Gadmen Baureglement turns out to be silent on camping, which is the likelier outcome given that Bernese communes usually put such bans in a Camping-Reglement or a police regulation, then this spot is lawful for a single night and I will say so here. If it contains a prohibition, this becomes a forbidden or restricted spot and the fine will come from cantonal building law rather than from the reglement itself.

Until then the correct label is the uncomfortable one. Our verdict scale has a state for exactly this, and using it costs less than pretending to certainty in either direction.

Where you can legally sleep

• Camping Gadmen, Obermad, 3863 Gadmen, +41 33 975 12 30. An authorised site in the same valley, and beyond any argument³.
• The huts and inns along the Sustenpass road and in the Gental, if you want a roof.
• The lake itself, only once you have asked the commune and been told nothing prohibits it. That is a real path, not a brush-off: it is one phone call and the answer settles it.
• Not on the assumption that no news is good news. One document here is unread, and that is not the same as empty.

General rules for wild camping

This applies wherever you sleep outside. At a spot whose legal status is genuinely open, it applies double: the fastest way to turn an unregulated place into a regulated one is to give the commune a reason to write the rule.

• 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 July 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 deliberately carries no verdict. The federal and cantonal layers are established, the commune has no police regulation, and the Gadmen building regulation could not be obtained because the commune does not publish it. Do not read the absence of a found prohibition as a permission. Communal regulations change, and a merged commune can carry two sets of them at once, as this one does. Before every tour, check the current sources yourself and follow instructions 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.

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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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