Wild camping at the Oberbärgli: the tent is banned, the bivvy bag is not
Kandersteg forbids camping outside designated areas and prices it at 200 francs. Then, one article earlier, it defines what camping means and writes sleeping out without a tent straight back out of the definition. That single sentence decides your night here, and the rest of this article is about the ground, which is a working alp with a building 90 metres away.
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.
The commune defines camping, and then defines the bivouac out of it
Almost every Swiss camping question turns on how a rule defines its own terms, and Kandersteg is the clearest example in this corpus. Its Gemeindepolizeireglement, adopted at the ballot on 13 December 2020 and in force since 1 January 2021, does the ban and the definition in two adjacent articles, and the definition is the interesting one.
First the prohibition, article 7 paragraph 1:
"Das Campieren ausserhalb der speziell dafür vorgesehenen und bewilligten Flächen ist nicht gestattet."Gemeindepolizeireglement der Einwohnergemeinde Kandersteg, in force 1 January 2021, art. 7 para. 1.
Read alone that is a flat ban on camping anywhere in the commune except the authorised sites, and the Oberbärgli is not one of them. But article 6 letter c says what "Campieren" means, and it does not stop at the definition:
"Campieren: jede Form des Übernachtens oder vorübergehenden Verweilens in Zelten, Wohnwagen, Wohnmobilen, Autos oder ähnlichen Unterkünften. Das blosse Aufstellen von Zelten, Wohnwagen, usw., zum Campieren fällt ebenfalls unter den Begriff des Campierens. Nicht darunter fällt das Übernachten im Freien ohne Zelt, im Iglu oder in einer Schneehöhle (Biwakieren)."Same reglement, art. 6 lit. c.
So the line is the tent, not the night. Pitch anything, even a one-person tarp tent, and you are camping and article 7 catches you. Sleep in a bivvy bag under the sky, in an igloo or in a snow hole, and by the commune's own definition you are not camping at all. This is not a loophole somebody found; the commune wrote it into its own reglement on purpose.2
What a tent costs here. The Gemeindepolizeiverordnung, the implementing ordinance the Gemeinderat issues under article 26 paragraph 6, carries a fine schedule for breaches of the reglement. Its first entry: "a. Art. 7 Campingverbot 200.00". Article 26 paragraph 1 sets the ceiling at 5'000 francs for reglement breaches generally, paragraph 2 lists article 7 among the provisions it applies to, and paragraph 4 allows a warning instead of a fine in light cases. Article 7 paragraph 3 adds that the Gemeinderat can order the original state restored and have it done at your expense if you refuse.32
And if you want the tent anyway, there is a door. Article 7 paragraph 2: the commune may permit exceptions on application, and the permit can be made conditional on security for things like toilets, cleaning and the visitor's tax. That is aimed at organised groups rather than one walker, but it exists and it is the lawful way to put a tent on this ground.2
Above the commune, nothing adds to this. Canton Bern has no general camping prohibition: the cantonal acts that would carry one contain no camping provision. And at the point itself the federal sweep returns exactly one thing, the landscape inventory object BLN 1507 "Berner Hochalpen und Aletsch-Bietschhorn-Gebiet (nördlicher Teil)", which binds authorities and carries no camping rule. No hunting-ban district, no wildlife rest zone, no mire, floodplain or dry meadow, verified with a positive control that does return a reserve and an invalid-layer control that errors instead of coming back empty.14
A working alp, not empty mountain
The law here is more permissive than the ground. The Oberbärgli sits at 1'992.9 m, LV95 2'622'900 / 1'150'879, commune of Kandersteg, on the shelf above the Oeschinensee on the way up to the Hohtürli. It is a genuine alp, and the building register is blunt about it.5
14 buildings within 1.2 kilometres, and the nearest is 90 metres from the pin. After that: 108 metres, then three more at 141, 155 and 167 metres that the register records as carrying partial residential use. The Berghaus Oberbärgli stands 166 metres away. The register addresses the whole cluster as "Oeschibärgli" even though the map name is Oberbärgli, which is worth knowing if you are looking it up.5
The terrain, by contrast, is good. The pin itself runs at 8.6 degrees, and of 192 samples out to 500 metres, 21 come in at 10 degrees or flatter. The flattest readings are west-northwest: 5.5 degrees at 1'965.7 m about 200 metres out, and 7.0 degrees at 1'972.6 m at 150 metres. East of the pin there is 6.5 degrees at 2'004.3 m at 100 metres. This is not a place where the ground decides against you.5
Which makes the courtesy the real rule. On a shelf this size, with an inhabited Berghaus and alp buildings at 90 to 167 metres, a bivvy bag 200 metres west is legal and unremarkable, and the same bivvy bag 30 metres from someone's door is neither. Walk out to the west-northwest ground, arrive late, leave early.5
Two neighbours you must not read this article onto. The Oeschinensee is 1'408 metres away and is forbidden, on its own protection instrument, not on article 7. The Hohtürli pass is 2'561 metres away, and the edge of federal game reserve no. 3 Kiental runs metres north of that saddle, where a tentless bivouac has no carve-out at all because the federal ordinance does not write one. Same commune, three different answers, and the difference is which instrument reaches the ground you are standing on.14
The Blüemlisalphütte SAC is 2'662 metres away, which on this route is the obvious roof if you would rather not think about any of the above.5
How to do it lawfully
The simple version: leave the tent at home. A bivvy bag under the open sky is expressly outside what this commune calls camping, so it is not caught by article 7 and there is nothing for the 200 franc tariff to attach to. That is the cleanest lawful night on this shelf and it needs no permission from anybody.2
If you want a tent, ask the commune. Article 7 paragraph 2 lets Kandersteg permit exceptions on application. Gemeindeverwaltung Kandersteg, and expect the question to be handled as a request rather than a formality, with conditions attached if it is granted. This is the route for a group; for one person on one night, the bivvy bag is the answer the reglement itself points at.2
Whatever you sleep in, the alp still applies. This is grazed, worked ground with people living on it seasonally at 141 to 167 metres. Nothing in the reglement obliges you to say hello, and you should anyway. Keep well clear of the buildings and the stock, use the west-northwest shelf rather than the ground by the Berghaus, and take everything out with you.5
One honest caveat about the carve-out. Article 6 letter c excludes sleeping out "ohne Zelt". A tarp, a bivvy bag with poles, a floorless shelter: none of those has been tested against this wording that I can find, and the further you get from "nothing over you but the sky", the closer you get to something a Polizeiorgan will read as a Zelt. If you want the carve-out to be unambiguous, make your setup unambiguous.2
General rules for wild camping
They matter more here than on empty mountain, because the carve-out in this reglement is unusual and generous, and the fastest way for a commune to delete a sentence like that is for people to abuse it in front of the alp that has to live with them.
- 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 reading that a tentless bivouac falls outside art. 7 rests on the definition in art. 6 lit. c of the same reglement, which is explicit, but I am not aware of it having been tested in a case, and where a shelter stops being tentless is not defined anywhere. A commune can amend its police reglement, and the designated and authorised areas art. 7 para. 1 refers to can change. This article covers the Kandersteg Oberbärgli only, not the Oberbärgli at Sigriswil or Erlenbach im Simmental, and not the Oeschinensee or the Hohtürli, which are governed by different instruments. Before every tour, check the current sources yourself, read any sign you find on the ground 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.
Frequently asked questions
Is wild camping allowed at the Oberbärgli?
What is the fine for camping at the Oberbärgli?
Can I get permission to pitch a tent there?
Which Oberbärgli is this?
Does this also cover the Oeschinensee or the Hohtürli?
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.
Sources
- Official federal geodata and the national height model, queried 23 August 2026 at the Oberbärgli, LV95 2'622'900 / 1'150'879, 1'992.9 m, commune Kandersteg, canton Bern, current-year boundary records only. The hunting-ban, wildlife-rest-zone, national-park and parks, floodplain, raised-bog, fen, moorland, amphibian, dry-meadow and water-bird-reserve layers all return an empty result set at the point. Verified with a positive control at LV95 2'626'000 / 1'154'500, which returns federal game reserve no. 3 Kiental, and an invalid-layer control, which returns HTTP 400 rather than an empty set. The single hit is BLN 1507 "Berner Hochalpen und Aletsch-Bietschhorn-Gebiet (nördlicher Teil)", an instrument addressed to authorities that contains no camping provision. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
- Gemeindepolizeireglement der Einwohnergemeinde Kandersteg, accepted at the ballot of 13 December 2020, in force since 1 January 2021, read in full 23 August 2026. Art. 6 lit. c: "Campieren: jede Form des Übernachtens oder vorübergehenden Verweilens in Zelten, Wohnwagen, Wohnmobilen, Autos oder ähnlichen Unterkünften. Das blosse Aufstellen von Zelten, Wohnwagen, usw., zum Campieren fällt ebenfalls unter den Begriff des Campierens. Nicht darunter fällt das Übernachten im Freien ohne Zelt, im Iglu oder in einer Schneehöhle (Biwakieren)." Art. 7 Abs. 1: "Das Campieren ausserhalb der speziell dafür vorgesehenen und bewilligten Flächen ist nicht gestattet." Abs. 2: the commune may permit exceptions on application, subject to security for replacement measures such as WC facilities, cleaning and collection of the visitor's tax. Abs. 3: the Gemeinderat may at any time order restoration of the original state and have it carried out at the expense of those concerned. Art. 26 Abs. 1: fine up to Fr. 5'000; Abs. 2 names "Art. 7 Campingverbot" among the provisions concerned; Abs. 4: in light cases a warning may replace the fine. gemeindekandersteg.ch. ↩
- Gemeindepolizeiverordnung der Einwohnergemeinde Kandersteg, the implementing ordinance the Gemeinderat issues under art. 26 para. 6 of the reglement, read 23 August 2026. Its fine schedule, "Bussenliste für Verstösse gegen Art. im GPR", opens with "a. Art. 7 Campingverbot 200.00", followed by Bettelei 20.00, Reiten 100.00, Politische Kundgebungen 200.00, Gesteigerter Gemeingebrauch 100.00 and Betreten gefrorener Eisflächen 100.00. gemeindekandersteg.ch. ↩
- Neighbouring instruments, recorded so this article is not read onto ground it does not cover. The Oeschinensee, 1'408 m from the point, is prohibited under its own protection instrument rather than under art. 7 of the police reglement. The Hohtürli pass, 2'561 m away, sits metres from the edge of federal game reserve no. 3 Kiental, where VEJ art. 5 para. 1 lit. e prohibits free tenting and camping with no tentless carve-out, fixed penalty CHF 150 under OBV annex 2 no. 12005. The Blüemlisalphütte SAC is 2'662 m from the point. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
- Terrain and settlement analysis at the Oberbärgli, 23 August 2026, on the federal height model. Slope from a 25 m cross at each sample, eight rings from 50 to 500 m in 24 directions: slope at the pin 8.6 degrees, 192 usable samples, 21 at 10 degrees or flatter. Flattest readings: 5.5 degrees at 1'965.7 m, 200 m on bearing 285; 7.0 degrees at 1'972.6 m at 150 m on bearing 300; 6.5 degrees at 2'004.3 m at 100 m on bearing 105. Federal building and dwelling register within 1'200 m: 14 buildings, the nearest at 90 m (Oeschibärgli 15a, category 1060, no residential use), then 108 m, and three recorded with partial residential use at 141, 155 and 167 m. Berghaus Oberbärgli 166 m from the point. Distances: Oeschinensee 1'408 m, Hohtürli 2'561 m, Blüemlisalphütte SAC 2'662 m. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩