Wild camping at the Lacs de Fenêtre: legal, and the commune's own rule is why

What do these mean?

Illegal A specific rule bans it, usually with a fine, and it can be enforced. Sleep somewhere else.

Not allowed No real place to camp here. A gated site, a developed area, or nowhere sensible to lie down, even if no fine is attached.

It depends You can sleep here, but there's a condition first: ask the landowner, book a spot, stay inside a set zone, or use a bivvy instead of a tent. The report says which.

Tolerated No rule clearly allows or bans it, but a single night is accepted in practice and nobody enforces against it. Normal for high bivouacs above the treeline.

Legal Camping one night is fine here. Either a rule allows it, or we checked every law and found nothing against it. Still: pitch late, leave early, no trace.

Orsières wrote a camping article, and it points somewhere else

Wild camping at the Lacs de Fenêtre turns on one short article in a règlement from 1989, so here it is in full, both sentences, because the second one is the one that matters.

"Le camping et le caravaning ne peuvent être pratiqués que sur les endroits réservés à cet effet. Le camping dit «sauvage» ne pourra se faire que dans les limites prévues par la législation cantonale."Règlement de police de la Commune d'Orsières, art. 59 "Camping", in the chapter on rural policing. Camping and caravanning may be practised only in the places reserved for that purpose. So-called wild camping may take place only within the limits provided by cantonal legislation.

Two sentences, two different subjects. The first is about le camping et le caravaning, the organised activity with pitches and vehicles, and it confines them to designated places. The second names le camping dit "sauvage" separately and does not confine it to anything. It refers it out, to cantonal law.

Why the referral reading is the right one. If the first sentence already caught a hiker's tent on an alp at 2'450 m, the second sentence would have nothing left to govern and would be pure decoration. Reading a provision so that every part of it does some work is ordinary. It is also the only reading on which the drafter's choice to name wild camping separately makes any sense at all.³

The counter-reading, stated plainly. Someone could argue that sentence one is the rule and sentence two only a saving clause, so that any tent outside a designated place is caught. I think that is the weaker reading for the reason just given, but it has never been tested in Orsières and I am not going to pretend the point is settled. If it were the right reading, art. 66 sets the price: a fine of CHF 50 to CHF 2'000, or up to fifteen days' arrest, prosecuted before the tribunal de police.³

One honest wrinkle about the referral itself. Art. 59 was adopted by the conseil communal on 29 November 1989, approved by the assemblée primaire on 8 January 1990 and homologated by the Conseil d'Etat on 31 January 1990. In 1989 cantonal law did have camping articles to refer to, in the 1977 implementing règlement to the 1976 hospitality law. Those died with their parent law when the current hospitality act replaced it in 2004. So this is a live reference to a regime that has since emptied out. The referral still works, it just now refers to almost nothing.³⁴

The règlement applies to the whole commune, art. 2 says so in terms, so there is no argument that the high alp sits outside it. It simply says what it says.³

The canton it points to, and what is actually in there

A referral is only as good as the thing referred to. So: what does Valais law say about a tent outside a campsite in August 2026?

The hospitality act is about businesses. RS/VS 935.3, the loi sur l'hébergement, la restauration et le commerce de détail de boissons alcoolisées of 8 April 2004, in force since 1 January 2005, is the act people mean when they say "the Valais camping law". Its art. 3 sets the scope, and the scope is commercial: it applies to any offer, à titre commercial, of accommodation, of campsite pitches, of food and drink. It regulates the person who runs a campsite. The words "sauvage" and "bivouac" do not occur anywhere in it.⁴

There is no Valais wild-camping ban. This surprises people, because "wild camping is banned in Valais" is repeated confidently across the internet and in national comparison tables. The rule those tables are remembering is the 1977 implementing règlement, and it went out with the law it implemented. What is left in force is communal, which is why this article spends its time on Orsières rather than on Sion.⁴

The one cantonal norm that does reach a tent is a building permit, and it is measured in weeks. The Ordonnance sur les constructions, RS/VS 705.100, art. 17, lists what needs an authorisation de construire. Its second paragraph opens with tents:

"Sont également subordonnés à une autorisation de construire: a) l'installation de caravanes, de tentes et autres en dehors d'une place de camping autorisée, si leur durée d'installation dépasse 3 semaines ou leur nombre est supérieur à 12"Ordonnance sur les constructions (OC), RS/VS 705.100, art. 17 al. 2 let. a. Also subject to a building permit: the installation of caravans, tents and the like outside an authorised campsite, if the duration of installation exceeds three weeks or their number is greater than twelve.

Read the threshold and then look at your tent. One tent, one night, is a factor of roughly twenty under the duration limit and a factor of twelve under the count. It is not a borderline case, and the provision is not a ban in any event: above the threshold you need a permit, you are not forbidden.⁵

Check the version, because this one moved. The Valais building ordinance was recast. RS/VS 705.100 is now the ordinance of 12 March 2025, in force since 1 January 2026. The three-weeks-or-twelve threshold survived the recast at the same article number, but anything you read about Valais tents that predates 2026 is quoting a text that no longer exists, even where the number happens to be the same.⁵

The building code is where the ban would hide, and it does not close

In this series, the communal building code is the trap. Klosters carries its whole camping ban in art. 100 of its Baugesetz. Bivio carries it in art. 95. Neither is where anyone would think to look. So the Orsières règlement communal des constructions et des zones got read rather than skipped, and it does have a tent provision.

Art. 5 lists what needs a building permit, and letter l names tents. The article opens "Toutes les constructions et installations sont subordonnées à une autorisation de construire, en particulier", then runs through fourteen letters of ordinary building things, and letter l is:

"l'installation, en dehors des terrains autorisés, de roulottes, wagons, caravanes, baraques volantes, tentes, etc."Commune d'Orsières, Règlement communal des constructions et des zones (RCCZ), art. 5 let. l. The installation, outside authorised sites, of caravans, wagons, trailers, portable huts, tents and so on. No duration or number is written into the communal text.

On its own wording that would be alarming, because unlike the cantonal provision it states no threshold at all. A literal reading would make every tent outside a campsite permit-liable anywhere in the commune.

It does not survive its own art. 2. The RCCZ says where it stands in the hierarchy, in its second article, before any of the substance:

"Les dispositions prévues dans le présent règlement sont basées sur les prescriptions cantonales en matière de construction et autres domaines s'y rapportant. Restent réservées les dispositions édictées par la Confédération et le Canton, ainsi que le droit des tiers."RCCZ art. 2 "Bases légales", letters a and b. The provisions of this règlement are based on the cantonal building prescriptions; the provisions enacted by the Confederation and the Canton, and the rights of third parties, are reserved.

So the communal list is the cantonal list, restated, and the cantonal list is the one that carries the threshold. A commune cannot make permit-liable what cantonal law says is not, and the RCCZ says as much itself rather than leaving it to inference. The result is that art. 5 let. l reaches the caravan parked for a season and does not reach the tent that is gone by breakfast.⁵⁶

Nobody needs to be asked, either. Valais has no consent regime of the Appenzell Innerrhoden kind, where an ordinance makes a tent lawful only with the landowner's agreement, and Orsières operates no bivouac permit scheme. No permission makes this lawful, and none is required for it. The Civil Code's access right to forest and pasture is not the reason either: art. 699 is a right of access and never a right to spend the night.⁹

The flat no is 1'481 metres north-north-west

The lakes sit in a bowl with a federal reserve just over the shoulder, so the distance is worth having exactly rather than roughly.

The Val Ferret / Combe de l'A hunting-ban district, object no. 37, is a large one: an integrally protected core of 3'881.1 hectares plus partially protected parts of 3'268.2 and 378.1 hectares. Its nearest boundary, measured against the polygon rather than pin to pin, is 1'481 m north-north-west of the lower lake, 2'048 m from the southern lake and 2'061 m from the eastern one. All three lakes are outside it.¹²

Inside, the federal ordinance leaves nothing open:

"Das freie Zelten und Campieren ist verboten. Vorbehalten bleibt die Benutzung offizieller Zeltplätze. Die Kantone können Ausnahmen bewilligen."Verordnung über die eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebiete (VEJ), SR 922.31, art. 5 para. 1 let. e, version in force since 1 February 2025. Free tenting and camping are forbidden; use of official campsites is reserved; the cantons may grant exceptions.

One detail worth knowing about this district in particular. The nearest part of object 37 is one of the partially protected areas, not the integral core, and people assume "partial" means the tent rule is softer there. It is not. The ordinance writes its partial-area carve-out into letter d, the one about carrying weapons. Letter e, the tent ban, has no such carve-out: it applies across the district, and the only door is a cantonal exception, which does not exist for tourist bivouacs.²

What that means on the ground. Sleeping at the lakes is fine. Wandering north-north-west up the flank towards the Combe de l'A to find somewhere quieter takes you into a federal tent ban in under twenty minutes of walking, and neither the commune's referral nor the landowner's goodwill helps you there. The direction to avoid, if you are moving off the lakes to camp, is the one that climbs away from Italy.¹²

Everything else is far. At the three lakes themselves, queried on 5 August 2026, the federal inventories return nothing at all: no hunting-ban district, no wildlife rest zone, no BLN landscape, no mire landscape, fen or raised bog, no floodplain, no amphibian site, no dry meadow, no park of national importance. The nearest wildlife rest zone is 10'355 m away, the nearest BLN object 11'789 m, the nearest floodplain 6'065 m, the nearest park of national importance 13'200 m. There is no fen within six kilometres.¹

Where to actually sleep, and what to know before you go up

There are three lakes, not one, and they are at different heights. The lower and largest sits at 2'457.0 m, LV95 2'576'912 / 1'081'915. A second lies at 2'496.2 m to the south, and a third at 2'512.6 m to the east. All three are in Orsières, canton Valais, and all three are outside every federal inventory. The Fenêtre de Ferret, the pass over to Italy, is 2'695.1 m and about 1.4 km south of the lower lake.¹

Italy is 1'353 metres south-south-east. That is close enough to matter if you are wandering at dusk looking for flat ground near the pass. This assessment is Swiss, and it stops at the border. Nothing here tells you what applies on the Italian side, and the Aosta Valley regime is a separate question I have not researched.¹

Pitch on the stony ground rather than the grass. The legal answer does not depend on this, but two practical things do. This is grazed alp country, and the elastic edge of any Swiss camping question is somebody's private interest: a tent in the middle of a grazed bench with stock on it is the version of this that generates a complaint. And the lake shores here are thin alpine turf that takes a long time to recover. Rock and scree a little away from the water costs you nothing and removes the argument.

Carry water, and expect company. The lakes are a well-known objective from both the Grand-Saint-Bernard pass and the Val Ferret side, and the ground around them is open, so a tent is visible from a long way off. Nothing about that is illegal. It just means the leave-no-trace part is not theoretical: you will be seen, and the next person's answer to this question depends partly on what you leave behind.

Courtesy, which is not law. The Alpine Club's leaflet is the standard worth following, and it says the useful thing about ground like this:

"Ansonsten ist eine einzelne Übernachtung einer kleinen Anzahl Personen im Gebirge oberhalb der Waldgrenze in der Regel unproblematisch, wenn sie rücksichtsvoll erfolgt. Zudem ist ein Notbiwak grundsätzlich erlaubt."SAC, Merkblatt "Campieren und Biwakieren in den Schweizer Bergen", 2026 edition. A single considerate night by a small group above the treeline is normally unproblematic, and an emergency bivouac is allowed outright.

That sentence is an ecological judgement from a club, not a permission, and it is the sentence the internet has turned into "above the treeline it is allowed in Switzerland", which is false in most of the country. Here it happens to point the same way the law does. The leaflet also asks you not to sleep too close to huts and grazed alps, which is the line most worth taking seriously at these particular lakes.⁸

What I could not settle. Whether the alpage that grazes this bowl has a view on tents, and whether anyone has ever been spoken to here. The commune's administration is the place that would know, Rue de la Commune 3, 1937 Orsières. That is a "not found" rather than a "does not exist", and it does not change the legal answer, which rests on norms rather than on goodwill.³

One currency flag. The police règlement dates from 1989 and the RCCZ is a full communal building code, both of them the kind of instrument that gets revised. The cantonal building ordinance was itself replaced on 1 January 2026. If you are reading this well after August 2026, art. 59 of the police règlement is the single thing to re-check.³⁵

Where you can legally sleep

• At any of the three lakes, 2'457 to 2'513 m, for one night. Outside every federal inventory, and the commune's own article refers wild camping to a cantonal regime that prohibits nothing¹³.
• On rock or scree a little back from the water, rather than on grazed turf. Not a legal line, but it is the difference between a night nobody minds and somebody's private interest³.
• Not north-north-west of the lower lake beyond 1'481 m. That is the Val Ferret / Combe de l'A hunting-ban district, where free tenting is banned by federal ordinance and consent does not help².
• Not for a stay measured in weeks. Above three weeks, or more than twelve tents, the cantonal building ordinance turns this into a permit question⁵.
• Not across the pass. Italy is 1'353 m south-south-east and this assessment stops at the border¹.

General rules for wild camping

This list matters more where the answer is yes than where it is no. The yes here rests on a referral in a 1989 communal article and on a cantonal regime that happens to be empty, which is a thinner foundation than a statute that says yes outright. Behave like the kind of visitor who keeps it that way.

• 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 the reading that art. 59 of the Orsières police règlement refers wild camping to cantonal legislation rather than prohibiting it, and on the absence of any cantonal wild-camping prohibition. That reading is supported by the structure of the article but has not been tested by a court or by the commune, and the alternative reading would expose a tent to the fine of CHF 50 to CHF 2'000 in art. 66. The verdict covers the three lakes themselves and not the Val Ferret / Combe de l'A hunting-ban district to the north-north-west, not stays beyond three weeks, and not Italian territory beyond the Fenêtre de Ferret. 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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Sources

1. Official federal geodata, queried 5 August 2026 at all three lakes: LV95 2'576'912 / 1'081'915 at 2'457.0 m, 2'576'882 / 1'081'294 at 2'496.2 m and 2'577'182 / 1'081'402 at 2'512.6 m, elevations from the swisstopo height service, gazetteer entries "Lacs de Fenêtre" (VS, Orsières). At each point with zero tolerance the hunting-ban district, wildlife rest zone, BLN, mire landscape, fen, raised bog, floodplain, amphibian, dry-meadow and national-park inventories all return an empty result set; the only record is the commune layer, Orsières, canton Valais, filtered on the current year. Nearest features measured against polygon geometry rather than pin to pin, from the lower lake: hunting-ban district "Val Ferret / Combe de l'A" 1'481 m north-north-west, nearest floodplain 6'065 m north-west, nearest wildlife rest zone 10'355 m north-north-east, nearest BLN object 11'789 m north-east, nearest park of national importance 13'200 m north-west, no fen of national importance within 6'000 m. National border 1'353 m south-south-east. The Fenêtre de Ferret at 2'695.1 m returns no Swiss commune, which is what a point on the border line looks like. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
2. Eidgenössisches Jagdbanngebiet "Val Ferret / Combe de l'A", object no. 37, comprising an area with integral protection provisions of 3'881.1 ha and partially protected areas of 3'268.2 ha and 378.1 ha. Nearest boundary 1'481 m north-north-west of the lower lake, 2'048 m from the southern lake and 2'061 m from the eastern lake; the nearest part is a partially protected one. Verordnung über die eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebiete (VEJ), SR 922.31, consolidated version in force since 1 February 2025, art. 5 para. 1 let. e, text retrieved from the Fedlex file store: "Das freie Zelten und Campieren ist verboten. Vorbehalten bleibt die Benutzung offizieller Zeltplätze. Die Kantone können Ausnahmen bewilligen." The exception the ordinance grants for partially protected areas is written into let. d, on carrying weapons and traps, and not into let. e, so the tent ban applies across the district. fedlex.admin.ch. ↩
3. Commune d'Orsières, Règlement de police, adopted by the conseil communal on 29 November 1989, approved by the assemblée primaire on 8 January 1990, homologated by the Conseil d'Etat on 31 January 1990, 16 pages, published on the commune's own site and read in full on 5 August 2026. Art. 2 al. 1: "Les dispositions de ce règlement sont applicables sur l'ensemble du territoire de la Commune d'Orsières." Art. 59 "Camping", in chapter X on rural policing: "Le camping et le caravaning ne peuvent être pratiqués que sur les endroits réservés à cet effet. Le camping dit «sauvage» ne pourra se faire que dans les limites prévues par la législation cantonale." Art. 66 "Pénalités" al. 1: "Toute contravention au présent règlement est punie d'une amende de Fr. 50.-- à Fr. 2'000.-- ou d'arrêts jusqu'à 15 jours." Art. 67 puts prosecution before the tribunal de police under the Valais code of criminal procedure. Art. 69 abrogates earlier provisions on the same subjects. The PDF carries a defective text layer and was read by optical character recognition at 200 dpi; the quoted passages were checked against the page images. orsieres.ch. ↩
4. Canton du Valais, Loi sur l'hébergement, la restauration et le commerce de détail de boissons alcoolisées, RS/VS 935.3, of 8 April 2004, in force since 1 January 2005, current and not abrogated, full text pulled from the cantonal law portal on 5 August 2026 and searched. Art. 3 al. 1 limits the scope to any offer made "à titre commercial" of accommodation, of "emplacements de camping", and of food and drink. The words "sauvage" and "bivouac" do not occur in the act at all. This is the act commonly cited as the source of a Valais wild-camping ban; it regulates campsite operators. The camping articles that did once exist, art. 16 and following of the 1977 implementing règlement to the 1976 hospitality law, fell with that law. lex.vs.ch. ↩
5. Canton du Valais, Ordonnance sur les constructions (OC), RS/VS 705.100, of 12 March 2025, in force since 1 January 2026, current and not abrogated, full text pulled from the cantonal law portal on 5 August 2026. Art. 17 "Constructions et installations soumises à une autorisation de construire", al. 2: "Sont également subordonnés à une autorisation de construire: a) l'installation de caravanes, de tentes et autres en dehors d'une place de camping autorisée, si leur durée d'installation dépasse 3 semaines ou leur nombre est supérieur à 12". Al. 1 ch. 11 separately makes the laying out of campsites, caravan sites and motorhome sites permit-liable, which is the commercial facility rather than the tent. Note the version: the ordinance was recast, and the three-weeks-or-twelve threshold carried over at the same article number, so pre-2026 citations of RS/VS 705.100 refer to a text that is no longer in force even where the number matches. lex.vs.ch. ↩
6. Commune d'Orsières, Règlement communal des constructions et des zones (RCCZ), read in full on 5 August 2026 because the communal building code is where a camping ban hides: it is the whole of the ban in Klosters (art. 100) and in Bivio (art. 95). Art. 2 "Bases légales": "a) Les dispositions prévues dans le présent règlement sont basées sur les prescriptions cantonales en matière de construction et autres domaines s'y rapportant. b) Restent réservées les dispositions édictées par la Confédération et le Canton, ainsi que le droit des tiers." Art. 4: the règlement applies to the whole commune. Art. 5 "Constructions soumises à autorisations" opens "Toutes les constructions et installations sont subordonnées à une autorisation de construire, en particulier" and its let. l covers "l'installation, en dehors des terrains autorisés, de roulottes, wagons, caravanes, baraques volantes, tentes, etc.", with no duration or number stated. Art. 7 lists projects not subject to authorisation. The commune also zones camping in art. 115 and art. 116, "zone camping-caravaning résidentiel" and "de passage", both of which are building zones for facilities and neither of which reaches the alp. orsieres.ch. ↩
7. Commune d'Orsières, published collection of communal règlements, enumerated through the site's own document index on 5 August 2026. Beyond the police règlement and the RCCZ, the collection contains règlements on waste and the déchetterie, the abattoir, secondary residences, the tourist promotion tax, the bourgeoisie, the cemetery, hall and gymnasium use, the crèche and UAPE, the ludothèque, fees for building applications, and fire regulation. None of them contains a camping, tent or bivouac provision. The commune runs two authorised campsites, at La Fouly and at the Relais d'Arpette, which are the "endroits réservés à cet effet" of art. 59 sentence one. Administration communale, Rue de la Commune 3, 1937 Orsières. orsieres.ch. ↩
8. Schweizer Alpen-Club SAC, Merkblatt "Campieren und Biwakieren in den Schweizer Bergen", 2026 edition. Quoted: "Ansonsten ist eine einzelne Übernachtung einer kleinen Anzahl Personen im Gebirge oberhalb der Waldgrenze in der Regel unproblematisch, wenn sie rücksichtsvoll erfolgt. Zudem ist ein Notbiwak grundsätzlich erlaubt." The leaflet is a recommendation from a club and not a norm, and its own text stresses that the legal situation is not uniform and that numerous communes have additional rules. It also asks that you not sleep too close to huts and grazed alps. Its definitions are used here for the wording question: Biwakieren is a night without a tent under the open sky, Campieren a night in a small tent outside official campsites. sac-cas.ch. ↩
9. Schweizerisches Zivilgesetzbuch (ZGB), SR 210, art. 699: forest and pasture are open to everyone within the bounds of local custom. A right of access and never a right to spend the night, and not what makes this place lawful. What makes it lawful is that no federal, cantonal or communal norm prohibits a single night here, and that the commune's own camping article refers the question to a canton that has not answered it with a ban. fedlex.admin.ch. ↩