Wild camping at Rosenlaui: the photo spot is inside a federal game reserve

One layer decides it, and it is not close

The point. Queried on 17 August 2026 at 46.691103 N / 8.164285 E, which is 2'655'507 / 1'171'355 in LV95, at 1'294.5 metres, canton Bern, commune Schattenhalb. This is the river ground below the Rosenlaui gorge, not the hamlet up the road.¹

It is inside the federal game reserve Schwarzhorn. The federal inventory of game reserves returns the object Schwarzhorn, number 4, 7'102.1 hectares at this point. Two controls were run so that the hit means what it appears to mean: an invalid layer name returns HTTP 400 rather than a quiet empty answer, and a test point 60 kilometres away on the same layer returns zero hits.¹

The rule is federal and it is explicit. The Verordnung über die eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebiete, SR 922.31, art. 5 para. 1, opens with "In den Banngebieten gelten folgende allgemeine Bestimmungen", the following general provisions apply in the reserves. Letter e then reads:

"Das freie Zelten und Campieren ist verboten. Vorbehalten bleibt die Benutzung offizieller Zeltplätze." Free tenting and camping is prohibited; the use of official campsites is reserved. The provision adds that the cantons may permit exceptions, which means Bern could authorise something here, not that you may assume it has.²

The price is fixed. Camping in a federal game reserve carries a fixed penalty of 150 francs under the Ordnungsbussenverordnung, SR 314.11, Anhang Ziff. 12005. That is a ticket, not a court case, which is exactly why it gets written.²

Now the objection that will occur to you. Schwarzhorn is not an integrally protected reserve. The inventory types it as "Gebiet mit partiellen Schutzbestimmungen", an area with partial protection regulations, and it is tempting to read "partial" as "the camping rule might not apply here".

It does apply, and the object sheet is why. The official Objektblatt for object 4 says, under special measures, only this: "Für das ganze Gebiet gelten die partiellen Schutzbestimmungen", and in French "L'ensemble du district franc est soumis à une protection partielle". There is no list of which provisions are reduced for Schwarzhorn, and the sheet contains no camping term at all. Meanwhile the camping ban lives in art. 5 para. 1, the paragraph that opens by declaring itself general to all reserves. The partial-specific carve-out in that article concerns weapons, not tents.³²

So the reading is the same one we reached at the Dreispitz in the Kiental: partial protection describes the hunting regime, it does not switch off the general provisions, and the tent ban is one of those.

Nothing else at the point matters by comparison. No BLN landscape, no wildlife rest zone, no park of national importance, no forest reserve, no building zone. When a federal ordinance already prohibits the thing you came to do, the rest of the layers are commentary.¹

The ground is perfect, which is the trap

Most illegal spots in this series are also bad spots: too steep, too wet, too close to a road. Rosenlaui is not. It is the opposite, and that is worth saying plainly, because the reason people camp here is that everything about the place invites it.

A scan of 60 samples out to 600 metres found 22 at or under 10 degrees. Within 80 metres of the point there are readings of 0.8 degrees to the north and northwest, 0.9, 1.2 and 1.4 degrees around the compass, all between 1'295 and 1'296 metres. Flat, open, beside the water.¹

And the boundary is nowhere near. Walking outwards on eight bearings until the reserve stops: the nearest edge is about 950 metres to the northeast. East it is 1'343 m, southeast 2'197 m, north 2'587 m, south 3'233 m, northwest 3'231 m, and to the west and southwest the reserve runs past four kilometres. You are not on an edge you might accidentally be outside of. You are well inside.¹

What is outside, and what it costs you. Following the shortest line, the northeast, the reserve ends between 950 and 1'000 metres out. At 1'000 m the ground is outside the reserve at 1'254.7 m and reads 13.9 degrees; at 1'200 m it is 1'248.6 m and 8.9 degrees. So the lawful ground in that direction is a kilometre away, a hundred metres lower, and distinctly less comfortable than the slabs. That is the honest trade.¹

It is also not lonely. There are 35 buildings within a kilometre, the nearest 141 metres away. Between the hotel, the gorge and the Grosse Scheidegg road, this is a place with eyes on it, which matters more here than usual because what you would be doing is ticketable.¹

What to do instead

Take the photograph and sleep elsewhere. Nothing in the reserve rules stops you being at the river, walking the gorge, or standing on the slabs at first light. The prohibition is on tenting and camping, not on visiting. Come early, shoot, and move on.²

If you want to sleep nearby, get out of the reserve first. The shortest exit is northeast: past about a kilometre you are outside the boundary. Expect steeper, higher ground rather than a riverbank, and check the reserve layer against your phone rather than pacing it out, because the line is not marked in the terrain.¹

Check the boundary yourself. On map.geo.admin.ch you can display the federal game reserves over the national map and compare the perimeter with your phone's GPS position. For a reserve of seven thousand hectares this is worth doing once before you plan a route rather than once you are standing there in the dark.¹

There is a roof at the spot itself. The Hotel Rosenlaui sits a few hundred metres up the road in the hamlet, which is the obvious answer if the point was to be here at dawn.

And higher up, the valley opens. The Rosenlauital continues toward the Dossen and the glacier, and ground above the treeline behaves differently from a riverbank in a game reserve. If you want a bivouac in this valley rather than this exact photograph, that is the direction to research, and the reserve boundary is the first thing to check when you do.

One thing not to do: assume that because the reserve is only "partially" protected, the tent ban is negotiable. It is not, for the reason set out above, and 150 francs is what the assumption costs.²³

General rules for wild camping

You are at a beautiful place where the one thing you want to do is prohibited by federal ordinance. The rules below are about being a good visitor rather than a camper:

• 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 August 2026, from the sources linked below, and it is not legal advice.

This report is written for the river point at 46.691103 / 8.164285, the ground people photograph. The hamlet of Rosenlaui up the road is a different pin with different facts, and nothing here is a verdict for the valley as a whole.

The federal ordinance provides that the cantons may permit exceptions to the camping prohibition in game reserves. We found no such Bernese exception for Schwarzhorn and did not assume one. If you have a specific reason to camp inside the reserve, that permission is the route, and it comes from the canton rather than from us.

The distances to the reserve boundary are radial bisections against the federal inventory layer, not a survey. They are accurate enough to show that the point is deep inside rather than borderline, which is the only claim made here.

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.

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