Wild camping on the Schesaplana: legal, and the summit is not in Switzerland
The national border runs straight across the top of this mountain, and the mapped high point falls about 1.3 metres on the Austrian side of it. That is the first thing to know, before any of the law. Walk ten metres down the south flank and you are unambiguously Swiss, and on Swiss ground nothing prohibits a single night here.
Gems of Switzerland
My 141 favourite spots in the Swiss Alps. With directions and a wildcamping analysis for every spot.
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 summit is the border, and the mapped high point is Austrian
Wild camping on the Schesaplana starts with something most people only find out at the top. The national border does not run near this summit. It runs across it, and the mapped high point is not in Switzerland.
The line follows the ridge from west-north-west to east-south-east, and the summit point at LV95 2'772'357 / 1'213'915, 2'964.8 m, sits 1.27 metres on the Austrian side, on a bearing of 191 degrees. That is not read off a map image. It comes from the swisstopo boundary geometry itself, bisected at sub-metre resolution, and the two boundary vertices either side of the pin are the border stones themselves. Both are in the national gazetteer: "Landesgrenzstein Schesaplana" 2.9 m to the east-south-east, "Landesgrenzstein SchesaplanaW" 6.3 m to the west. The gazetteer's entry for the summit itself, "Alpiner Gipfel Schesaplana", has a blank canton field, which is the tell.2
What that actually means. 1.3 metres is inside survey noise and inside the footprint of the summit structure. The cross and the cairn straddle the line. Nobody is going to measure you, and the honest description is that the summit is the border rather than a Swiss summit with a border nearby. But if you want the Swiss answer to apply to you, the fix takes ten seconds.
Walk about ten metres down the south side. At LV95 2'772'357 / 1'213'905, 2'960.6 m, you are unambiguously in Switzerland, in Seewis im Prättigau, canton Graubünden, and everything below applies. Ten metres is the number to use, not because 1.3 m is legally decisive but because ten metres is the margin that makes the answer obvious on the ground.2
Direction matters here more than distance, because the border is not symmetrical around the top. First Swiss ground is 1.3 m due south, 1.5 m south-west and 2.2 m south-east. To the north, north-east, north-west and east there is no Swiss ground within 1'200 metres: the ridge falls away into Vorarlberg. Due west you stay Austrian for just under 1'100 m before the line swings back. In one sentence: what you want is downhill and south.2
Three layers on the Swiss side, and not one of them prohibits it
An absence is only worth something if you can say what was actually read. Here is each layer, named.
Federal. Queried at five points on 30 July 2026, from the summit down the south flank to the hut: no hunting-ban district, no wildlife rest zone, no BLN landscape, no mire or moor landscape, no floodplain or amphibian object, no dry-meadow object, no bird reserve, no park of national importance, no Ramsar, Emerald or biosphere site, no forest reserve, no UNESCO site. The strongest single result is the hunting-ban districts: there is no Jagdbanngebiet anywhere in a 35 by 30 kilometre envelope around the mountain, which means the federal tent ban that applies inside those districts has nothing here to attach to. Two controls make that meaningful rather than a broken query. A deliberately misspelled layer returns an HTTP error instead of an empty set, and positive controls run at computed interior points of real polygons return the expected records.1
Cantonal. Graubünden has no camping norm for the public at all. The full text of the planning act, the hunting act, the wildlife protection ordinance, the nature and heritage act and the police act was pulled from the cantonal law portal and searched. The only article in Bündner law headed "Campieren" is Art. 13 of the hunting operating rules, and its opening words settle who it binds:
"Für die Ausübung der Jagd"Jagdbetriebsvorschriften des Kantons Graubünden, BR 740.025, Art. 13 "Campieren": tents, tarps and overnighting in vehicles are permitted only on marked sites, for the exercise of the hunt. It binds hunters, not hikers.
That article is worth more as evidence than as a rule. The canton knows exactly how to write a camping ban, wrote one for hunters, and wrote none for everybody else. The access ban in the cantonal wildlife protection ordinance is scoped the same way, "Zur Ausübung der Jagd", and no cantonal Wildschutzgebiet covers this mountain in any case: the cantonal geoportal returns nothing at the summit flank, at the hut or on the mid flank, with a grid probe over the Rätikon returning Girenspitz and Schafnüd-Stein to prove the layer answers.34
Communal. Seewis im Prättigau has never had a Polizeigesetz. Not missing from the current index: no such act appears in the commune's 30-item law collection, in the cantonal register of legal provisions, or in anything ever archived on the commune's own site. And the Baugesetz, in force since 7 May 2019, is 39 pages that were read in full, with zero hits for campieren, Camping, Zelt, Biwak, übernachten, Lager or nächtigen. That check is not a formality. It is the trap that caught Klosters, where the entire camping ban is Art. 100 of the Baugesetz, and Bivio, where it is Art. 95. Seewis simply never wrote one.5
And there is nobody to ask. Graubünden has nothing resembling the Appenzell Innerrhoden consent regime, where a tent needs the landowner's agreement by ordinance, and Seewis operates no permit scheme. No consent makes this lawful and none is required for it, which is exactly why the verdict is legal rather than restricted. The Civil Code's access right to forest and pasture is not what carries it either: that is a right of access and never a right to spend the night.12
The three Seewis norms that do exist, and where each one stops
Seewis is not a legal vacuum, and saying "no rule" without naming the rules that do exist would be sloppy. Three communal norms are real, named and fined. None of them reaches a night on the upper flank, and here is exactly where each one stops.
1. The forest camping ban. The commune's forest act of 2001 says it in five words:
"Das Campieren im Wald ist verboten."Waldgesetz der Gemeinde Seewis (GWaG 2001), Art. 25. Art. 27 punishes breaches with fines of CHF 100 to 5'000 alongside full damages, and the Gemeindevorstand prosecutes under Art. 26.
This is the one norm on the mountain that would genuinely catch a camper, and it catches them on the walk-in. Profiling the commune's own zoning layer along the ascent from Seewis Dorf, the forest zone runs from roughly 985 m to roughly 1'794 m. The hut at 1'906.9 m is already above it, and the pin is another 1'100 m higher again. So: do not stop for the night among the trees on the way up, and above the forest this article has nothing to say to you. One honest note on the wording, because it matters elsewhere in this series. The operative verb is "Campieren" alone, not Lagern and not Biwakieren, so on the literal text it does not reach a tentless bivouac. I would not build a plan on that reading, but it is the reading.6
2. The wildlife rest zones. Seewis has a Gesetz betreffend Wildruhezonen from 2010. Inside a zone you may enter only on marked paths, and only between 1 February and 30 April, with fines of CHF 300 to 1'000 and up to CHF 5'000 for a repeat. Two reasons it is not your problem here. The season is winter and early spring, so a summer night falls outside the window even inside a zone. And the geography is wrong: Seewis's only zone sits around the village, 7.9 km from the hut, and the nearest zone of any commune is Grüsch "Eggwald" at 4.81 km, also winter-only.7
3. The Flurverbot. This is the closest thing in Seewis law to a summer rule about open ground, so it deserves quoting rather than waving away:
"Das Betreten und Befahren von fremden Wiesen und Äckern ist während der Vegetationszeit verboten. Diese dauert in der Regel vom 1. Mai bis 30. September."Flur- und Dorfverordnung der Gemeinde Seewis of 14 May 1993, Art. 4 "Flurverbot". Art. 22 sets a fine of up to CHF 5'000.
Art. 1 defines the Fluren as valley and mountain meadows, fields and gardens, and Art. 8 treats the alps and commons as the separate category the Fluren are fenced off from. Textually it targets valley and Maiensäss hay meadows, not the alp, and its verb is entering and driving rather than overnighting. At 2'200 m and above you are on rock, scree and shale, which is neither a Wiese nor an Acker on any reading. Where it is genuinely unsettled is the grazed bench right at the hut. If you pitch on cut or grazed meadow near the hut between 1 May and 30 September, this is the article somebody could point at. It is the one open edge in the file, and the fix is to walk higher.8
One zoning overlay you will see on the map and can set aside. The whole Swiss flank, hut included, sits in a Landschaftsschutzzone under Art. 34 of the cantonal planning act. Its second paragraph bars "Neue Bauten und Anlagen" and expressly excepts high-mountain accommodation. A tent struck at dawn is not a Baute, and the zone carries no camping provision of any kind. It is worth mentioning only because anyone who opens the zoning map will see it and wonder.4
Where to actually sleep on the Swiss side, and what to carry
The summit is a broad stony dome, not a summit block, and it carries a 9.5 m cross put up in 1949. There is room to lie down. North the ground falls roughly 280 m in 200 m into the Brandner Gletscher headwall, which is not ground at all. South it is broad and moderate, roughly 97 m over 200 m, about 26 degrees on average, with flatter shelves.2
The realistic Swiss pitch is the upper south flank, roughly 2'700 to 2'900 m. Rock and scree, above the alp, above the mires and dry meadows, out of the Flurverbot's reach and unambiguously Swiss. Carry water. There is none near the top. The only confirmed source on the Swiss flank is the Brunnen at the hut, 1'058 vertical metres below.10
Two patches near the hut to walk around. Neither is a camping ban and both are worth naming, because they are the fragile ground rather than the legal problem. A Flachmoor of national importance called "Palus" has its boundary 74 m from the hut, immediately west and below. A Trockenwiese und Trockenweide of national importance called "Sawadies" has its boundary 113 m from the hut, with its interior about 200 m to the north-east, which is the side you walk up. Mires carry a federal duty of undiminished conservation. Neither object prohibits your tent, and both are avoidable by walking a few minutes higher onto rock.1
The hut. Schesaplanahütte SAC, 1'906.9 m, owned by SAC Sektion Pfannenstiel, wardens Petra und Hanspeter Dal Ponte, +41 81 325 11 63, info@schesaplana-huette.ch. Season roughly 5 June to 11 October, 65 places, winter room with 8 places. 2026 prices: CHF 31 overnight or CHF 75 half board for SAC members, CHF 41 or CHF 85 otherwise, cash or TWINT, no euros. From the hut the normal route to the summit is T4, 3 to 3.5 hours and 1'100 metres of ascent, on a white-blue-white alpine route with rope-secured sections.10
There is no published camping rule at this hut, in either direction. The hut's own site, the section's pages, the SAC tour portal, the Austrian Alpine Club's hut database and the Graubünden Tourism entry were all read. The words Zelt, zelten, campieren, Biwak and Camping appear in none of them, no no-camping sign is documented and no tent pitch is advertised. So do not read a permission into that silence, and do not read a ban into it either.10
Courtesy, which is not law. The Alpine Club's own leaflet is the standard worth following, and it says two useful things:
"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. In short: a single considerate night above the treeline is normally unproblematic, and an emergency bivouac is allowed outright.
"Übernachte nicht zu nahe bei Hütten und beweideten Alpen oder erkundige dich, ob eine Übernachtung in der Nähe möglich ist."Same leaflet: do not sleep too close to huts and grazed alps, or ask whether a night nearby is possible.
Both lines are recommendations from the Alpine Club and neither is a norm. Nothing on this mountain conditions your night on anybody's permission, and if you follow the second line and phone the wardens, you are being polite rather than compliant. The leaflet is also useful for its definitions, which is what resolves the wording question in the forest act: Biwakieren is a night without a tent under the open sky, Campieren is a night in a small tent outside official campsites.9
What I could not settle. Whether anyone has an informal arrangement with the wardens, and whether a fee is customary if you pitch near the hut. The honest word is not found rather than does not exist: the two places such a line would live, the hiking forums and the map reviews, were blocked to me. One call to +41 81 325 11 63 would settle it in a minute.10
One currency flag. Seewis has an Ortsplanungsrevision running across the whole commune. The current Baugesetz has no camping article, and a revision is exactly the place one could appear. If you are reading this well after July 2026, that is the thing to re-check.4
A few metres north you are in Austria, and it is not the stricter side
Pitch on the north side of the cairn and you are in Vorarlberg, under a different system. People assume that is the worse outcome. It is not.
Vorarlberg's Campingplatzgesetz contains no general ban on pitching outside campsites. Its § 14 only empowers the mayor to forbid a tent case by case by formal decision, and lets the municipal council forbid it at named places by ordinance. The penalty of up to EUR 700 bites only once such a decision or ordinance exists, and neither Brand, which holds the ground at the summit, nor Vandans publishes a camping ordinance. There is no Natura 2000 site at the summit and no Ruhegebiet in the Rätikon.11
So what changes at the border is the regime, not the answer. Both sides have the same shape: restricted in the forest below, nothing above it. Switzerland bans camping in the forest through the Seewis forest act; Austria requires the forest owner's consent below the timber line through the federal Forstgesetz. Above the trees, neither side prohibits a night.11
Two practical notes rather than legal ones. The Mannheimer Hütte sits roughly 300 m below the summit on the Austrian side, about 1.5 hours away, with an open winter room, and that is the real reason almost nobody bivouacs on this top. And this is a Swiss assessment: enough of the Austrian side was checked to tell you it is not the trap it looks like, and not enough to write you an Austrian legal opinion.11
Where you can legally sleep
- The upper south flank, roughly 2'700 to 2'900 m, for one night. Rock and scree, unambiguously Swiss, and no norm reaches it1.
- About ten metres down the south side of the summit, LV95 2'772'357 / 1'213'905, 2'960.6 m, if you want the top and want to be certain which country you are in2.
- Schesaplanahütte SAC, 1'906.9 m, +41 81 325 11 63, roughly 5 June to 11 October, with a winter room of 8 places open the rest of the year10.
- Not in the forest on the walk-in, roughly 985 m to 1'794 m. That is where the Seewis forest act bites, CHF 100 to 5'0006.
- Not on the mire or the dry meadow by the hut. Neither is a ban and both are ground you should stay off. Walk a few minutes higher onto rock.
General rules for wild camping
This matters more where the answer is yes than where it is no. Seewis has never needed a camping rule at 2'900 metres, and there is an Ortsplanungsrevision running right now. The list below is not law. It is the reason the answer above is still yes.
- 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 July 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 covers the Swiss side of the ridge and rests on the absence of any prohibition at the federal, cantonal and communal level. An absence can end: Seewis has an Ortsplanungsrevision running, and a revision is where a camping article would appear. The reach of the Flurverbot onto the grazed bench at the hut is unsettled and untested. At the mapped summit point you are in Austria and this assessment does not apply to you. 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.
Gems of Switzerland
My 141 favourite spots in the Swiss Alps. With directions and a wildcamping analysis for every spot.
Frequently asked questions
Is wild camping allowed on the Schesaplana?
Is the summit in Switzerland or in Austria?
Do I need anyone's permission?
Isn't camping banned in the forest below?
Can I pitch next to the Schesaplanahütte?
Is Austria stricter on the other side?
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, queried 30 July 2026 at five points from the summit down the south flank to the Schesaplanahütte: hunting-ban districts, wildlife rest zones, BLN, mire, raised bog, moor landscape, floodplain, amphibian, dry-meadow and bird-reserve inventories, parks of national importance, Ramsar, Emerald and biosphere sites, forest reserves and UNESCO world heritage all return a genuinely empty result set. No Jagdbanngebiet exists anywhere in the envelope E 2'755'000 to 2'790'000 / N 1'200'000 to 1'230'000, so the tent and camping ban in VEJ SR 922.31 Art. 5 para. 1 lit. e has nothing here to attach to. Verified with an invalid-layer control returning HTTP 400 at every point, and positive controls run at computed interior points of real polygons, which return the Säntis hunting-ban district, a BLN object, a wildlife rest zone, a mire and the dry meadow "Sawadies". Nearest features, measured against polygon geometry rather than pin to pin: Flachmoor of national importance "Palus" (obj 456) 74 m from the hut, Trockenwiese und Trockenweide of national importance "Sawadies" (obj 11400) 113 m from the hut with its interior about 200 m north-east, nearest wildlife rest zone "Eggwald" (Grüsch, protection period 1 February to 15 April) 4'810 m from the hut and 6'185 m from the summit, nearest BLN object 1914 "Plasseggen, Schijenflue" 11'961 m from the summit. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
- swisstopo boundary geometry, gazetteer and height model, queried 30 July 2026. The national border layer was extracted around the summit and bisected along eight bearings at sub-metre resolution: the border passes 1.27 m from the summit pin on bearing 191 degrees, running west-north-west to east-south-east along the ridge (local course 101 / 281 degrees). First Swiss ground: 1.3 m due south, 1.5 m south-west, 2.2 m south-east; no Swiss ground within 1'200 m to the north, north-east, north-west or east; due west Swiss only from 1'093 m. Gazetteer entries "Landesgrenzstein Schesaplana" (LV95 2'772'359.5 / 1'213'912.9, 2.9 m east-south-east, attributed to Seewis im Prättigau GR) and "Landesgrenzstein SchesaplanaW" (LV95 2'772'351 / 1'213'914.5, 6.3 m west, blank canton field); the entry "Alpiner Gipfel Schesaplana" also carries a blank canton field. Summit pin LV95 2'772'357.25 / 1'213'914.6, WGS84 47.053833 / 9.707394, 2'964.8 m. Unambiguously Swiss ground about 10 m down the south side at LV95 2'772'357 / 1'213'905, 2'960.6 m. Height-model grid around the summit: roughly 280 m of drop over 200 m to the north into the Brandner Gletscher headwall, roughly 97 m over 200 m to the south, about 26 degrees. Commune, district and canton layers filtered to the current year return Seewis im Prättigau, Prättigau/Davos and Graubünden at every Swiss point and zero records at the summit pin. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
- Canton Graubünden, full statute texts downloaded from the cantonal law portal and searched, 30 July 2026: Raumplanungsgesetz KRG BR 801.100 (Art. 32, 34, 41, 95), Kantonales Jagdgesetz KJG BR 740.000 (Art. 27, 28, 47), Verordnung über die Wildschutzgebiete VWSG BR 740.200 (Art. 10, whose access ban is expressly "Zur Ausübung der Jagd"), Natur- und Heimatschutzgesetz KNHG BR 496.000 (Art. 43), Polizeigesetz PolG BR 613.000. None contains a camping, tent or bivouac provision for the public. The only article in Bündner law headed "Campieren" is Art. 13 of the Jagdbetriebsvorschriften BR 740.025, which permits tents, tarps and overnighting in vehicles only on marked sites and only "Für die Ausübung der Jagd". The Wildschutzgebiete named in Seewis territory in the VWSG annex (Sanalada, Parduz, Picardi, Fadära) do not include the Schesaplana. gr-lex.gr.ch. ↩
- Cantonal geoportal of Graubünden, queried 30 July 2026 at the summit flank, the hut and the mid flank. Cantonal Wildschutzgebiete: empty at all three, with a grid probe over the Rätikon returning "Girenspitz" and "Schafnüd-Stein" as a positive control. Federal hunting-ban districts and the out-of-season access ban: empty, matching the federal sweep. Zoning: Zone übriges Gemeindegebiet (KRG Art. 41) on the upper flank, Landwirtschaftszone (KRG Art. 32) at the hut. Landschaftsschutzzone under KRG Art. 34 over the whole Swiss flank including the hut, operat 3972, decision 09.777 of 11 August 2009, in force without reservation; Art. 34 para. 2 bars only "Neue Bauten und Anlagen" and expressly excepts Hochgebirgsunterkünfte, and carries no camping provision. All 111 unique land-use planning layers were run at five points and returned no further protection overlay. The layer of current planning work returns "Revision Ortsplanung, Seewis i.P." across the commune, which is the currency flag noted in the article. map.geo.gr.ch. ↩
- Gemeinde Seewis im Prättigau (BFS 3972, region Prättigau/Davos), law collection and building act, consulted 30 July 2026. The commune's published collection runs to 30 acts and contains no Polizeigesetz and no Polizeiverordnung; none appears in the cantonal register of legal provisions either. The Baugesetz der Gemeinde Seewis, systematic no. 3972.(1), in force since 7 May 2019, was downloaded from the cantonal register and read in full, all 39 pages: zero hits for campier, Camping, Zelt, Biwak, übernacht, Lager or nächtig. The Gastwirtschaftsgesetz of 1999 likewise contains no camping provision. The building act was read rather than assumed because that is where the entire camping ban sits in Klosters (Art. 100) and in Bivio (Art. 95). Gemeindeverwaltung Seewis, von Salis-Strasse 2, 7212 Seewis Dorf, +41 81 325 12 89. seewis.ch. ↩
- Waldgesetz der Gemeinde Seewis (GWaG 2001), Art. 25: "Das Campieren im Wald ist verboten." Art. 26 makes the Gemeindevorstand the prosecuting authority, Art. 27 punishes breaches with fines of CHF 100 to 5'000 alongside full damages, and Art. 28 gives an appeal to the cantonal administrative court within 20 days. The prohibition is scoped to the forest, and the commune's own base-zoning layer profiled along the ascent from Seewis Dorf puts the forest zone between roughly 985 m and roughly 1'794 m; above that the plan turns to agricultural zone and then to Zone übriges Gemeindegebiet, so neither the hut at 1'906.9 m nor the summit flank is forest. The operative verb is "Campieren" alone, without Lagern or Biwakieren. seewis.ch. ↩
- Gesetz betreffend Wildruhezonen in der Gemeinde Seewis i. P., adopted by the Gemeindeversammlung on 26 February 2010 on the basis of Baugesetz Art. 28 and KJG Art. 27. Art. 3: a zone may be entered only on marked paths between 1 February and 30 April. Art. 6: fines of CHF 300 to 1'000, up to CHF 5'000 on repeat. The operative verb is entering off-path rather than camping, and the season excludes a summer night. Seewis's only zone, "Hochgerichtswald/Rütiwies", lies around the village roughly 7.9 km from the hut; the nearest zone of any commune is Grüsch "Eggwald", 4.81 km from the hut, protection period 1 February to 15 April. seewis.ch. ↩
- Flur- und Dorfverordnung der Gemeinde Seewis of 14 May 1993, Art. 4 "Flurverbot": "Das Betreten und Befahren von fremden Wiesen und Äckern ist während der Vegetationszeit verboten. Diese dauert in der Regel vom 1. Mai bis 30. September." Art. 22 sets a fine of up to CHF 5'000. Art. 1 defines the Fluren as valley and mountain meadows, fields and gardens; Art. 8 treats the alps and commons as a separate category that the Fluren are fenced off from. The operative verb is entering and driving rather than overnighting, and at 2'200 m and above the ground is rock, scree and shale. Its reach onto the grazed alp bench at the hut is unsettled and untested, which is why the article says so rather than claiming it is clear. seewis.ch. ↩
- Swiss Alpine 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." And: "Übernachte nicht zu nahe bei Hütten und beweideten Alpen oder erkundige dich, ob eine Übernachtung in der Nähe möglich ist." The leaflet's definitions are what resolve the wording question in the Seewis forest act: Biwakieren is a night without a tent under the open sky, Campieren is a night in a small tent outside official campsites. Guidance and courtesy, not law. sac-cas.ch. ↩
- Schesaplanahütte SAC, 1'906.9 m, LV95 2'770'588.8 / 1'212'775.8, owned by SAC Sektion Pfannenstiel. Wardens Petra und Hanspeter Dal Ponte, +41 81 325 11 63, info@schesaplana-huette.ch. Season 2026 roughly 5 June to 11 October, 65 places, winter room with 8 places plus emergency beds, small kitchen, water at the Brunnen and a pit toilet. Prices 2026: SAC members CHF 31 overnight or CHF 75 half board, non-members CHF 41 or CHF 85, cash or TWINT and no euros. Normal route from the hut to the summit T4, 3 to 3.5 hours, 1'100 m of ascent (SAC tour portal). Approaches from the hut's own page: Seewis via Cani about 4 h, Fanas via Valarsäge about 3.5 h, Malans about 5 h, Malbun via the Pfälzerhütte about 6 h, Brand via the Lünersee cable car and the Cavelljoch about 3.5 h; you may drive for a fee to the Valar-Säge parking, leaving roughly 30 minutes on foot. No published camping rule exists at this hut in either direction: the hut site, the section's hut pages, the SAC portal, the Austrian Alpine Club hut database and the Graubünden Tourism entry were all read and the words Zelt, zelten, campieren, Biwak and Camping appear in none of them. No word-of-mouth arrangement or fee was found either, and that is a "not found" rather than a "does not exist": hiking forums and map reviews were unreachable. schesaplana-huette.ch. ↩
- Austrian side, checked only far enough to place the border question honestly. Vorarlberg Campingplatzgesetz, LGBl. Nr. 34/1981 in the version of LGBl. Nr. 34/2026: no general ban on pitching outside campsites; § 14 para. 1 empowers the mayor to forbid a tent case by case by formal decision and § 14 para. 2 lets the municipal council forbid it at named places by ordinance; § 19 sets a penalty of up to EUR 700, which applies only once such a decision or ordinance exists. Neither Gemeinde Brand, which holds the ground at the summit, nor Gemeinde Vandans publishes a camping ordinance in its online register (checked 30 July 2026). Vorarlberg geodata returns no Natura 2000 site and no Ruhezone at the summit; across the whole Land there is exactly one Ruhezone and it is in the Montafon. Forstgesetz 1975, BGBl. Nr. 440/1975, § 33 para. 3 requires the forest owner's consent for tenting and for camping after dark, with a penalty of up to EUR 150, and § 2 para. 2 caps forest at the timber line, so it bites on the walk-in from Brand and not at the summit, mirroring the Swiss side exactly. The Mannheimer Hütte, DAV Sektion Mannheim, sits roughly 300 m below the summit on the Austrian side, about 1.5 hours away, with an open winter room; no altitude figure is printed here because none is confirmed by a primary source. ris.bka.gv.at. ↩
- Swiss Civil Code (ZGB), SR 210, Art. 699: forest and pasture are accessible to everyone within customary limits. A right of access and never a right to spend the night, and it is not what makes this spot lawful. The absence of any prohibition is. fedlex.admin.ch. ↩
Gems of Switzerland
My 141 favourite spots in the Swiss Alps. With directions and a wildcamping analysis for every spot.