Wild camping at the Hohgant

One cantonal sheet decides the whole ridge

Wild camping at the Hohgant is decided by a single page of cantonal law, and it is worth reading it properly, because it is drafted better than most of what I check.

Federal, first, so the absence is on the record. Queried at the summit on 11 August 2026, LV95 2'635'360 / 1'181'980, WGS84 46.788052 N / 7.901725 E, about 2'196.8 m: no federal hunting-ban district, no mire, floodplain, dry-meadow or amphibian object, no park of national importance. Two controls make that a finding rather than a broken query. A positive control at 2'626'000 / 1'154'500 returns federal game reserve no. 3 Kiental, so the layers answer. An invalid-layer control comes back as an HTTP 400 rather than an empty set, which is exactly the trap that turns a typo into a false all-clear. What the point does return is the federal landscape inventory BLN, object no. 1505 Hohgant, and the Emerald site Habkern / Sörenberg. Neither of those fines a camper: BLN binds authorities when they plan and permit, not the person sleeping on the ground.¹

Cantonal, and this is the one that bites. The federal wildlife-zone portal returns a legally binding zone at the point, "Hohgant (Nr. 1018.Zone 1a)", protection period 1 January to 31 December, and it names its legal basis: Bern's Verordnung über den Wildtierschutz. Follow that to the ordinance itself and the Hohgant is area no. 18 in annex 1, wildlife management area 11, measure categories C, D, E and F. Annex 2 spells the measures out:¹

"Freies/wildes Campieren und Biwakieren sowie das Lärmen und die Verwendung von lärmerzeugenden Geräten sind verboten."Canton of Bern, Verordnung über den Wildtierschutz (WTSchV), BSG 922.63 of 26 February 2003, in force since 1 May 2003, annex 2, object sheet no. 18 Hohgant, category F, under the heading "Alle Zonen (1a, 1b)".

Free or wild camping and bivouacking. That second word is why this article is short. At most Swiss spots the interesting question is whether a rule written against Camping or a Zelt also catches a person lying in a bivvy bag, and the honest answer is often that it does not. Here the canton wrote both words, so there is nothing left to argue. The area is 3'058.97 hectares and the ban applies to both zones, not just the core.²

And it holds all year. This is the detail I would want someone to point out to me. On the very same sheet, category D says the area may be entered only on existing marked paths and roads "vom 1. Dezember bis zum 7. August", and category E puts dogs on the lead for the same window. Category F, the one with the camping sentence in it, carries no date. The drafters dated two measures and deliberately left the third undated, and the federal portal records the protection period for the area as running the full calendar year. A summer bivouac is not a gap in this rule.²¹

What it costs. Do not carry the familiar CHF 150 over from other articles. That is the federal fixed penalty for free camping inside a federal game reserve, and the federal inventory is empty at the Hohgant. The object sheet does call the area a Jagdbanngebiet since 1992, but that is the cantonal designation, and cantonal designations carry cantonal sanctions. The chain here is Bern's hunting act: art. 31 para. 1 lit. c of the Gesetz über Jagd und Wildtierschutz punishes anyone who disregards binding orders for the protection of wild animals with a fine of up to CHF 20'000, and art. 27 para. 4 entitles wildlife wardens to impose and collect fixed penalties on the spot. Those on-the-spot fines are capped at the federal fixed-penalty ceiling and can only be issued if you agree to one; refuse it and what remains is the ordinary procedure with the CHF 20'000 ceiling above it.⁷ A single tidy night will not draw that ceiling. It can draw a warden.³²

There is no lawful pitch on this massif, and here is how far you would have to walk

At every spot I check, this is the section where the exception goes: the alp that says yes, the ground just outside the line, the height above which nobody minds. At the Hohgant I could not find one, and rather than dress that up, here is the measurement.

The usual Swiss fallback does not rescue it either. The Alpine Club's own guidance ties its tolerance of a single considerate night to ground outside protected areas, and the whole of this massif is a protected area. Height is not the argument here; the perimeter is.⁸

From the summit I walked the perimeter outwards on twelve bearings and asked, at every hundred metres, whether the point was still inside any binding wildlife protection zone. The nearest ground that is outside all of them is 1'500 metres north, at 1'196 metres. That is a thousand metres below the ridge, in the woods above the valley floor, and it is not a bivouac spot, it is a walk home. Every direction that keeps you anywhere near the height you came for stays inside the perimeter.⁴

Two more numbers, because they close the obvious loopholes. Leave zone 1a at its nearest edge, 1'228 metres south-east of the summit, and you drop straight into a second protected area, wildlife protection area no. 7 Habkern Lombachalp, which binds from 1 December to 7 August. And the nearest ground that is both outside every wildlife zone and still at 1'800 metres or above is 4.7 kilometres east-north-east, at the Schibegütsch, which is already canton Lucerne, a different legal regime that this article has not checked for you.⁴

And the Hohgant is not closed to you. The same category F that forbids the bivouac expressly allows access to the climbing routes at the Geisskirche and the Furggegütsch from the existing marked paths and roads. Between 8 August and 30 November there is no path restriction either, because category D is out of season. So the ridge is a day, not a night: walk it, climb it, then sleep under the hut roof or back down in the valley.²

The place, and the one zone that is stricter still

Summit: WGS84 46.788052 N / 7.901725 E, LV95 2'635'360 / 1'181'980, 2'196.8 m on the federal terrain model. The gazetteer files the Hohgant as a massif shared by Eriz, Habkern and Schangnau; the cadastre at the summit says Habkern, and the object sheet adds Beatenberg to the list of communes the reserve covers. It is the long limestone wall you see from the Emmental side, and the protection has deep roots: the sheet dates it to 1974 as a nature reserve and 1992 as a game reserve, with the nature reserves Hohgant-Seefeld and Rotmoos inside it.²⁶

Zone 1b is stricter than the rest. The reserve is split into zone 1a, which covers the bulk of the massif, and a core zone 1b in the west, roughly between 2'630'100 and 2'632'200 east. In 1b, category D applies with no season at all: you may enter only on the marked paths and roads, every day of the year. The camping and bivouac ban is identical in both zones, so 1b adds a path rule rather than changing the answer, but it does mean that in the core the whole question of pitching off the trail never arises.¹²

One thing I will not claim: what a warden would do on a warm night in September if you were tidy and gone by six. 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 real, current, undated, and written with the word Biwakieren in it, which is a rarer thing in Swiss law than the internet suggests.²

Where you can legally sleep

• The Hohganthütte, about 1'805 m, SAC Emmental, inside the perimeter and entirely lawful, self-catering, booked in advance with the door code by SMS⁵.
• Nowhere outdoors on the massif itself, in either zone, in any month, because category F is undated².
• Below the perimeter, from 1'500 m north of the summit onwards, at around 1'196 m in the woods, where the wildlife zones end and ordinary Swiss rules and the landowner's word take over⁴.
• Valley beds in Habkern, Schangnau and the Eriz, which is the honest answer for most people arriving late.

General rules for wild camping

None of this makes the Hohgant legal, and I am not offering it as a way to be discreet about breaking a rule. Take it to the places where you actually may sleep out, starting with the ones this site has already checked.

• 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 cantonal ordinance and its annex, both of which can be amended, and on a perimeter that the canton can redraw. Before every tour, check the current sources yourself and follow the signs and 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.

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