Wild camping at the Lutersee: forbidden, with a door that is hard to find

The rule is in the building regulation, and it is commune-wide

First, which Lutersee. Switzerland has three, plus a Luterseeli and an area of the same name. There is one in Hospental at 1'974 m, one in Wolfenschiessen at 1'703 m, and this one in Andermatt at 2'357 m. The Andermatt lake is the one with a published walk, the Gütsch to Lutersee round along the flank of the Schneehüenerstock, which is why it is the one people ask about. If you meant one of the other two, the commune is different and so is the answer.⁴

Now the rule, and it is worth knowing where it hides. Uri communes usually put this in a Campingverordnung. Andermatt put it in the Bau- und Zonenordnung, the building and zoning ordinance, at article 95a:

"Auf dem gesamten Gemeindegebiet ist das Campieren nur auf bewilligten Campingplätzen zulässig. Das wilde Campieren ist verboten. Als Campieren wird die Benützung von Zelten, Wohnwagen, Mobilheimen und dergleichen definiert."Bau- und Zonenordnung der Gemeinde Andermatt of 28 September 2021, revised 22 December 2025, art. 95a "Campieren". In English: on the entire communal territory camping is permitted only on authorised campsites; wild camping is prohibited; camping is defined as the use of tents, caravans, mobile homes and the like.

Read what it does and does not qualify. It says the entire communal territory, so there is no altitude line and no zone to be outside of. It names wild camping in as many words. And it defines the activity by equipment rather than by conduct.¹

The permit that exists and cannot be read

On 18 May 2022 the Gemeinderat Andermatt adopted a Merkblatt, "Bewilligungen im Zusammenhang mit dem Campieren", together with an explanatory note, and announced both a week later on the commune's news page. That page is still up. Both document links on it have empty targets, so the conditions, the form and the fee are not publicly retrievable.¹

That is worth stating plainly rather than glossing. A permit regime exists and the commune has said so in writing. What it requires is not something this article can tell you, and it is not something you should assume. It makes the phone call the whole answer: Gemeindeverwaltung Andermatt, Kirchgasse 10, 6490 Andermatt, 041 888 71 41, gemeinde@andermatt.ch.¹

What the canton adds, and where

Uri does fine camping, and the figure is real: the Ordnungsbussenreglement prices "Lagern, Zelten oder Campieren in Schutzzonen" at 150 francs. Read the bracket that follows it, though, because it is the whole of the rule: the fine attaches to art. 34 para. 1 lit. a of the cantonal nature protection act in connection with the relevant regulation. In other words it applies inside a designated protection zone, not everywhere in the canton.²

No such zone reaches this lake. The cantonal protection series holds eighteen acts. The only one for Andermatt is the regulation on the Naturschutzgebiet Bäz, whose perimeter is three named parcels on the valley floor, between 5.3 and 6.2 km from the Lutersee. The regulation on the waters of the Urserntal contains no camping term at all. And the Maderanertal and Fellital regulation, which does prohibit tents, governs that region: the federal Fellital game reserve edge is already 1'097 m away.³²

Federal law is empty here. No game reserve, no BLN object, no bog, no floodplain, no dry meadow, no park, no forest reserve at the lake, with controls passed. The nearest wildlife rest zone, Schneehühnerstock-Riental, is 189 m away and legally binding, but it bars entry only between 1 December and 30 April, which makes it a season note rather than a summer problem.³

The wording leaves one thing open, and it is not a loophole to lean on

Article 95a defines camping as "die Benützung von Zelten, Wohnwagen, Mobilheimen und dergleichen". That is a list of devices. A mat and a sleeping bag under the open sky use none of them, and on a plain reading of the text a tentless bivouac sits outside the definition.¹

Take that for exactly what it is. It is a reading of a sentence, not a permission anyone has given, and "und dergleichen" is doing work that no court in Uri has been asked to measure. The same shape appears in the neighbouring communes: Göschenen and Gurtnellen both regulate camping with device lists, and both of those reports are graded the same way as this one for the same reason.

So if you want certainty, the permit route is the answer and the commune is one call away. If you are going to rely on the wording, then rely on it honestly: no tent, out of sight of the path, arrive late, leave at first light, and take everything. A bivvy bag that nobody sees is the version of this argument that survives. A tent on the shore is not, and it is the version that gets article 95a enforced.

The ground, and where it actually is

A warning about maps of this lake. The national elevation model flattens water to the surface plane, so an unfiltered search for level ground here returns eight "perfect" results that all read exactly 0.0 degrees at 2'357.4 metres, which is the lake itself. Anyone recommending a pitch from a raw model is recommending the middle of the water.⁵

Masked against the published lake outline and filtered to at least 25 m back from any shore, the best ground is 0.9 degrees at 2'371.7 m, LV95 2'692'640 / 1'168'959, about 285 m east of the lake centre and 98 m back from the water. It also sits 266 m from the wildlife rest zone edge, which matters only in winter. The box median is 23.3 degrees, so this basin is genuinely gentler than most, and there are further options at 2.5 and 3.0 degrees within 210 m.⁵

What is around you: the Schneehüenerstock-Flyer and the Lutersee-Flyer, two aerial installations, at 605 and 649 m; the Felli alp buildings from 455 m; a marked path 110 m away. This is high open country with a lift system in view, reached most easily by gondola from Andermatt, which is exactly why the commune has a rule and why a tent here is seen.⁵

The season and the honest alternative

At 2'357 m this is a summer and early-autumn question. From 1 December to 30 April the rest zone 189 m away is closed to entry on foot and for winter sports, and the ground is under snow in any case.³

If the permit does not come through, the alternative that fits this walk is simply to do it in a day: the round from the Gütsch is built around the gondola, and Andermatt has beds and a campsite in the valley. That is a less romantic answer than a tent at 2'357 m, and it is the one that does not depend on how a Gemeinderat reads "und dergleichen".

General rules for wild camping

You are in a commune that wrote a commune-wide camping ban and then built a permit route it has not published. Both halves of that argue for being careful and for asking:

• 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

Everything here is a journalistic assessment as of September 2026, from the sources linked below, and it is not legal advice.

It depends is the accurate verdict, and it is on the strict side of that word: article 95a is a real prohibition covering the whole commune. What keeps this from being a flat no is the permit regime the municipal council adopted on 18 May 2022, whose documents the commune's own page no longer serves.

The reading that a tentless bivouac falls outside a definition built on tents, caravans and mobile homes is textual and untested. It is not a permission, and a communal authority could read the closing words of that definition more broadly.

Switzerland has three lakes called Lutersee. This verdict describes the one in Andermatt at 2'357 m, on the Gütsch round.

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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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