Wild camping on the Gross Bigerhorn

Wild camping on the Gross Bigerhorn: the whole route is St. Niklaus ground

The Gross Bigerhorn is a 3'624 m summit above the Mattertal, on the ridge between St. Niklaus and Eisten. The federal gazetteer lists it as a main summit, at LV95 2'633'367 / 1'110'490. The usual way up starts in Gasenried above St. Niklaus and spends the night at the Bordierhütte SAC, 2'886 m. From the hut the SAC's normal route, graded T3+, follows cairns east-south-east to a signpost, climbs to P. 3148, the saddle between the Klein and the Gross Bigerhorn, and finishes along the west-south-west ridge: about 2 h 30 and 740 m from the hut, marked white-red-white since 2024.¹⁸

Every step of that route is St. Niklaus ground. The hut, the tarn basin north-east of it, P. 3148 and the ridge all lie in St. Niklaus. The commune line only arrives at the very top: the summit sits on the boundary with Eisten, whose ground starts 2 m to the north and east and carries the crevassed Balfrin glacier. The SAC lists no route up from the Saas side.¹⁸

Which commune you stand in decides which regulation applies: under Valais law, a breach of communal law is judged by the criminal law of the commune where it happens. On the Gross Bigerhorn both regulations lead to the same answer.⁵

St. Niklaus: camping and bivouacking banned since 2025

On 13 December 2024 St. Niklaus added an article headed "Campieren" to its police regulation. It has been in force since 1 January 2025, and the Staatsrat homologated it on 21 May 2025:²

"Campieren, Biwakieren, Caravanning und andere vergleichbare Aktivitäten sind ausserhalb der vom Gemeinderat dafür bezeichneten Zonen verboten."Polizeireglement der Gemeinde St. Niklaus, Art. 14a. In English: camping, bivouacking, caravanning and other comparable activities are prohibited outside the zones the communal council designates for them.

A bivvy bag is caught as well. Many Swiss bans name tents only, and a night without one falls through the gap. St. Niklaus names "Biwakieren" in the same sentence as camping, so a night in a bivvy bag without a tent is banned by the text itself, not by interpretation.²

The ban covers the whole commune, whoever owns the ground. The regulation applies to offences "auf dem Gebiet der Gemeinde St. Niklaus", on the commune's territory (Art. 1), and Art. 14a does not ask who owns the slope. No landowner, alp or SAC section can permit a tent or a bivouac; only the communal council can, by designating a zone. The commune's building and zoning regulation has no camping zone, and the canton's zoning map shows the hut, the tarn basin and P. 3148 as "übriges Gemeindegebiet", the remaining communal territory, with no overlay.²¹

The fine is up to CHF 5'000 (Art. 15), and negligence is punishable (Art. 1). There is no tariff. The commune's police court judges (Art. 2), and anyone without a fixed residence in Switzerland can be asked for a deposit (Art. 16).²

The hut applies the rule itself. The last line of the Bordierhütte's "Gut zu wissen" page reads: "Campieren und biwakieren sind verboten auf Gemeindegebiet St.Niklaus". In English: camping and bivouacking are prohibited on the communal territory of St. Niklaus.⁷

The summit: the Eisten line, and no ground to lie on

Eisten bans an overnight on its public ground. Art. 11 of its police regulation reads: "Das Campieren und Übernachten auf öffentlichem Grund und Boden ist nur in den von der Gemeinde dafür bezeichneten Zonen gestattet." Camping and overnighting on public ground are allowed only in zones the commune designates, and "Übernachten", overnighting, reaches a night without a tent as well. Eisten's zoning plan, homologated on 23 July 2024, has no such zone. Breaches cost a fine of up to CHF 5'000 (Art. 27 para. 1), and negligence is punishable (Art. 26). The regulation as published carries no date of adoption or homologation.³

On this ridge, public ground is everything. The Valais act implementing the civil code puts land that cannot be cultivated into the public property of the communes:⁵

"Die Gemeindestrassen, die nicht kultivierbaren Regionen, wie Felsen, Schutthalden, Schneefelder und Gletscher, Seen, alle Wasserläufe, ab demjenigen Punkt wo sie entspringen, fallen in das öffentliche Eigentum der Gemeinden."Einführungsgesetz zum Schweizerischen Zivilgesetzbuch (EGZGB), RS/VS 211.1, Art. 163 Abs. 3. In English: communal roads, non-cultivable regions such as rock, scree, snowfields and glaciers, lakes and all watercourses fall into the public property of the communes.

The summit rock and the Balfrin glacier are exactly that, and there is no surveyed parcel up here. On the St. Niklaus side ownership does not even matter, since Art. 14a covers the whole territory.⁵¹

The summit has no ground to lie on anyway. Within 30 m of the top the slopes average about 52 degrees. The nearest patch of 10 by 10 m flatter than 20 degrees lies 132 m east-north-east and 88 m lower, on the Eisten side, at the edge of the glacier beside grey ponds or dead ice. Everything flatter to the east and south-east is crevassed glacier.¹

The official data disagree by about a metre on which side the survey point lies: swissBOUNDARIES3D and the canton's official survey put it in St. Niklaus, the canton's zoning map in Eisten. Both communes ban a night there, so the answer does not change. The glacier flats 1.1 to 1.2 km south-east of the summit reach into Saas-Balen, whose Art. 29 also bans camping on public ground.¹⁴

Place by place on the way up

• Around the Bordierhütte, 2'886 m: no. Rock slabs and thin grass surround the hut, its annex and the outhouse. It is St. Niklaus ground, and the hut publishes the ban itself: no tent and no bivvy beside the hut, book a bed or the winter room instead.¹⁷
• The tarn basin north-east of the hut, 2'937 m: no. About 0.9 km north-east of the hut, off any path, a tarn of about 7'600 m² lies in a moraine hollow; the national map labels it 2916. Behind the moraine crest north-west of the water is a dry plain of fine gravel, about 200 m from the shore and 21 m above it, sloping at about 8 degrees: the best bivouac ground on the mountain. It lies in St. Niklaus, under the same ban.¹²
• P. 3148 on the route, 3'148 m: no. The saddle between the Klein and the Gross Bigerhorn is a small level hump of block scree on the marked path, just big enough for a bivvy, with the ground falling 85 m within 150 m to the north. St. Niklaus ground, banned like every metre of the route.¹²
• The summit, 3'624 m: no. No ground to lie on, and both communes that share the top ban a night there.¹²³
• Gasenried, the larch forest and the Alpja: no. The approach, from about 1'670 m to about 2'300 m, crosses the village, a larch forest and the Alpja sheep alp. It is St. Niklaus ground under Art. 14a, and village, forest and grazing are no place for a tent.²⁷
• The Balfrin glacier on the Eisten and Saas-Balen side: no. The flatter ground east and south-east of the summit, at 3'449 m and 3'598 m, is crevassed glacier and public ground, where Eisten and Saas-Balen ban camping.¹³⁴

A genuine emergency bivouac, forced by weather or an injury, is a rescue situation, not camping. A night planned for the summit is not an emergency.

What the canton and the Confederation add

Valais has no cantonal camping ban, and no federal protected area covers the hut, P. 3148, the tarn basin or the summit. None of them lies in a federal game reserve, so the federal tent ban for those reserves and its CHF 150 fixed fine do not apply. There is no wildlife rest zone, federal or cantonal, no object of the federal landscape inventory, no park and no mire.¹⁶

The hut, P. 3148 and the tarn basin lie in the cantonal hunting reserve no. 47 "Färichhorn". It bans hunting and nothing else: the canton's hunting decree has no rule on visitors, tents or bivouacs for it, and it is not a federal game reserve. The summit lies just outside it.⁶

How it is possible: the Bordierhütte, and the summit in the morning

The night on this ascent is a bed in the Bordierhütte SAC, 2'886 m, owned by the SAC's Geneva section, the CAS Genevoise. From the hut the summit is about 2 h 30 away, so the classic plan is the hut path on the first day and the summit early on the second.⁸

Outside the season: the winter room. It has 9 places with blankets and pillows, and no water, no wood and no cooking. From mid-September to mid-June the hut asks for a reservation by email for it too, at info@bordierhuette.com, and payment by bank transfer: leave no cash in the room. The price list gives no price for the winter room.⁷

Water. The fountain at the hut runs glacier water and is not drinking water; the hut sells boiled water.⁷

The way up. Since June 2023 the hut path from Gasenried no longer crosses the Riedgletscher, per the hut: a new path, marked white-red-white, leads through a larch forest and the glacier forefield to the Alpja sheep alp, over the big moraine to the Riedbach and up the left side of the valley. The SAC route page, last updated in May 2019, still describes the glacier crossing, so go by the hut's description. The hut keeps 4 free parking spaces at the entrance of Gasenried.⁷⁸

St. Niklaus's ban also covers the lower part of the Haute Route descent from the Augstbordpass to Jungen, in the Gruben report. On the Mettelhorn above Zermatt two communes meet on the summit, with the same answer, and the Saastal report covers the valley on the other side of the Balfrin. How the cantons compare: wild camping in Switzerland.

General rules for wild camping

There is no lawful night outside on the Gross Bigerhorn. Take these rules to the places where there is one, and to the way up and down:

• 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 as of 13 October 2026, based on the official sources linked below. It does not replace legal advice and is not a binding statement of the current legal situation.

St. Niklaus publishes no council decision designating a camping zone, and its zoning plan has none; ask the commune before relying on a zone, +41 27 955 25 00, gemeinde@zaniglas.ch. Eisten's police regulation, as published, carries no date of adoption or homologation. The owner of the Alpja is not published, which does not matter under Art. 14a. The commune line at the summit is not marked on the ground, so treat both bans as applying on the whole top. Hut seasons, prices and the path come from the operator: check them before you go and follow instructions on site. Anyone who spends the night outside bears responsibility for their own conduct and its consequences. 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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