Wild camping at the Sihlseeli: nothing forbids it, but flat ground is scarce
Two answers here, and they pull in opposite directions in the most useful way. Legally this is one of the clearest yeses I have found: no inventory touches it, no protection zone covers it, and the camping laws that do exist are about running a campsite. Practically, the basin is steep enough that thirteen samples out of nine hundred are flat enough to sleep on. Knowing both before you walk in is the whole point of this page.
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.
Three levels checked, and the camping laws are about campsites
Wild camping at the Sihlseeli is not prohibited by anything I can find, and since that is the rarer answer it is worth showing the checks instead of asserting the result.
A word on the name first. This came in as "Shilseeli", which the federal gazetteer does not resolve at all: every result is fuzzy noise from other cantons. The lake is spelled Sihlseeli, it lies in the commune of Unteriberg in the Ybrig, and it feeds the Sihl. If you have been searching for it and finding nothing, that is why.9
The federal level returns nothing at all. Landscape inventory, game reserves, wildlife rest zones, raised bogs, fens, mire landscapes, floodplains, dry meadows, amphibian sites, waterbird reserves and parks of national importance: every one empty. That claim is only worth something if the query is sound, so it was controlled in both directions, with an invalid layer name erroring at HTTP 400 rather than returning an empty set, and a positive control returning a known reserve.1
The cadastre is almost as quiet. The parcel under the lake is small, 17'187 m², and carries exactly two restrictions, both of which sit at the point: the base designation "Übriges Gemeindegebiet" and noise sensitivity level III. There is no nature protection zone, no landscape zone, no groundwater zone, nothing that could carry a camping clause. Reading that extract took a parser written for this canton's dialect, which is worth stating rather than hiding.28
"Die Zone für Campingplätze bezweckt den Betrieb von öffentlichen Campingplätzen. Gestattet ist das Aufstellen von Wohnwagen und Zelten sowie die Errichtung der betriebsnotwendigen infrastrukturellen Bauten und Anlagen."Baureglement Unteriberg, approved 23 August 2022, art. 43 paras. 1 and 2.
The commune does regulate camping, and reading it is the point. Unteriberg's building regulation runs to 181 articles and devotes article 43 to a Campingzone. That article is a zone definition: its purpose is the operation of public campsites, and inside it caravans and tents are permitted. It is the opposite of a prohibition, and it applies to a designated zone that is not here. Scanning the whole regulation on whole words, the single occurrence of untersagt is article 30 on building setbacks from watercourses, and the two Lagern hits are commercial storage uses and construction waste. There is no general camping ban in it.3
The canton has a tent law, and it is a licence for operators. The Schwyz act of 10 December 1959 on the establishment and operation of public tent sites reads exactly as its title suggests: whoever wants to run one needs a permit, must supply a good-conduct certificate and site plans, must provide hygienic toilets and clean drinking water, must appoint a warden, must have guests fill in registration slips for the police and must collect the tourist tax. It contains zero occurrences of "wild" or "Biwak". It regulates the business of running a campsite, and it has nothing to say about one person putting up a small tent for a night.4
And the planning act regulates vehicles. Schwyz's Planungs- und Baugesetz provides at § 70 para. 1 that caravans, mobile homes and the like may be set up for use for more than 48 hours only on authorised campsites. That is a threshold rule aimed at vehicles left standing, and its own wording, "für mehr als 48 Stunden", tells you it is not written against a tent that is gone by breakfast.5
The catch is the basin, not the law
Having established that nothing forbids the night, here is the part that will actually shape your evening.
Flat ground is scarce here. Sampled on the federal terrain model over an 800-metre box, 1'089 points, with both water bodies in the box masked by polygon: of 906 dry samples with a full slope neighbourhood, only 13 come in under 7 degrees. Compare that with a broad alp plateau, where the same box routinely yields fifty or more. This is a tight basin under steep flanks, and arriving in the dark expecting choice would be a mistake.6
The pitch to aim for. The best of those thirteen is 2.7 degrees at 1'832.4 metres, LV95 2'708'469 / 1'208'686, WGS84 47.020348 N / 8.865412 E. That is 112 metres from the lake point, 35 metres back from the water and 601 metres from the nearest building. If it is taken or wet, the flattest reading in the box is 1.8 degrees at 1'800.7 metres, 300 metres out and 29 metres from the shore.6
It is genuinely remote, which is rarer than it sounds. The nearest registered building is Obersihl 6 at 638 metres, and there are five within 800 metres, all in that same cluster. Most of the spots in this series have a restaurant, a lift station or a chalet inside a hundred metres. Here you are half a kilometre from anything built, at 1'825 metres, above the local treeline.9
Which means the Alpine Club's guidance applies in full. The SAC position is that a single considerate one-night bivouac above the treeline and outside protected areas is generally tolerated in Switzerland. Both halves hold here: the altitude is right and the federal sweep found no protected area at all. That guidance is not what makes this lawful, the absence of any prohibition is, but it is unusual for both qualifiers to be satisfied without argument.7
What a clear yes costs. Thirteen usable pitches in an 800-metre box means the same few patches get used, and that is exactly how a place acquires its first rule. One small tent, up late and gone early, no fire, nothing left, and everything carried out including what looks harmless. The Ybrig is working alp country: expect stock, expect fences, and leave gates as you found them.
The place
Sihlseeli: WGS84 47.019457 N / 8.864731 E, LV95 2'708'419 / 1'208'586, 1'825.0 m on the federal terrain model, commune of Unteriberg, canton Schwyz, in the Ybrig above the head of the Sihl valley. Cadastral parcel 1151, 17'187 m².2
The lake is small: of 1'089 sample points across an 800-metre box, only 28 fall inside it. There is a second, unnamed water body in the same box, and both were masked by polygon before any slope was ranked, because a terrain model renders standing water as a flat plane and will otherwise hand you the middle of a lake as the flattest ground.6
One thing worth flagging for anyone planning from a map: this basin sits in the Ybrig, and the wider region does carry mire objects and protected areas. None of them reaches this point, which the sweep above establishes layer by layer, but if you wander from here that can change within a few hundred metres. The verdict on this page is about the ground at the coordinates given, not about the valley.1
One thing I will not pretend to know: who grazes this basin and whether they mind. There is no rule requiring you to ask at this point, and the nearest buildings are more than half a kilometre away, but on alp ground a word with whoever is working it has never once made a night worse.
Where you can legally sleep
- Here, at the lake: no federal, cantonal or communal instrument prohibits a single night, and the cadastre puts no protection zone over the point at all2.
- Best measured spot: 2.7 degrees at 1'832.4 m, LV95 2'708'469 / 1'208'686, 112 m from the pin, 35 m back from the water and 601 m from the nearest building6.
- Expect to look: only 13 of 906 dry samples come in under 7 degrees, so this is not a basin to arrive at in the dark6.
- Not in a marked Campingzone under communal law unless you are using it as one: that zone exists for the operation of public campsites and is somewhere else entirely3.
- Not with a van: cantonal law puts caravans and mobile homes standing over 48 hours on authorised campsites only, and that is a different question from a tent5.
General rules for wild camping
Thirteen usable pitches means the same ground gets reused, and reused ground is how a place earns its first prohibition. The list below is the reason this page can still say 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 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.
A verdict of legal here rests on a verified absence rather than an express permission, and an absence is the weaker foundation: a commune can post a sign or adopt a plan at any time, and Unteriberg's building regulation is itself recent, approved in August 2022. The reading of the cantonal tent act and of the communal camping article as facility rules follows from their own wording, but a court could read them more broadly than I have. The parcel under the lake is small, so the extract cannot tell you where the nearest protection zone begins, and nothing on this page claims a distance to one. Distances are measured against published polygons and register points, not markers in the terrain. Before every tour, check the current sources yourself and follow the signs 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 Sihlseeli?
I searched for Shilseeli and found nothing. Why?
Doesn't Schwyz have a law about tents?
Where exactly should the tent go?
How remote is it?
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 13 August 2026 at the Sihlseeli, WGS84 47.019457 N / 8.864731 E, LV95 2'708'419 / 1'208'586, 1'825.0 m, commune of Unteriberg. Every inventory layer returns an empty result set: the federal landscape inventory, the game reserves, the wildlife-rest-zone portal, the raised bogs, the fens, the mire landscapes, the floodplains, the dry meadows and pastures, the amphibian spawning sites, the waterbird reserves and the parks of national importance. Verified in both directions: a positive control at LV95 2'626'000 / 1'154'500 returns federal game reserve no. 3 Kiental, and an invalid-layer control returns HTTP 400 rather than an empty set, so an empty answer here means absence and not a bad query. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
- Cadastre of public-law restrictions on landownership, canton of Schwyz, extract fetched with geometry on 13 August 2026 for EGRID CH227972224084: parcel 1151, commune of Unteriberg, 17'187 m², and just two restrictions, both carrying surface geometry and both returned by point-in-polygon at the lake: the base designation "Übriges Gemeindegebiet" and Empfindlichkeitsstufe III. There is no nature-protection zone, no landscape zone and no groundwater protection zone on this parcel. Because the parcel is small, the extract cannot establish how far away the nearest protection zone lies, and no such distance is claimed in this article. map.geo.sz.ch. ↩
- Gemeinde Unteriberg, Baureglement, approved 23 August 2022, the act the cadastre names as in force at this parcel, read in full on 13 August 2026, 181 articles. Art. 43 (Campingzone) para. 1: "Die Zone für Campingplätze bezweckt den Betrieb von öffentlichen Campingplätzen"; para. 2: "Gestattet ist das Aufstellen von Wohnwagen und Zelten sowie die Errichtung der betriebsnotwendigen infrastrukturellen Bauten und Anlagen", expressly reserving the cantonal instruments. It is a zone definition that permits tents inside a designated zone, not a prohibition. A word-boundary scan of the whole regulation finds the single occurrence of "untersagt" in art. 30 on building setbacks from watercourses, and the "Lagern" occurrences in a commercial-zone clause on storage uses and in a provision on construction waste; art. 43quarter allows a paraglider landing zone to be used temporarily as an event campsite. There is no general camping prohibition. oereblex.sz.ch. ↩
- Kanton Schwyz, Gesetz über die Errichtung und den Betrieb öffentlicher Zeltplätze of 10 December 1959, SRSZ 543.110, read in full on 13 August 2026. § 1: anyone wishing to establish and operate a public tent site needs a permit. § 2 requires personal details, a good-conduct certificate and site plans. § 3 sets the conditions: a suitable location, not as a rule in the village centre or near churches or schools; hygienic and maintainable toilets; clean drinking water and treated waste water; covered waste containers with collection arranged; a posted site regulation; and a responsible warden. § 5 makes the holder and warden responsible for order and complete quiet from 22.00 to 07.00. § 6 requires guest registration slips for the police and collection of the tourist tax, and § 7 places the sites under police supervision. The act contains zero occurrences of "wild" or "Biwak": it licenses the business of running a campsite. sz.ch. ↩
- Kanton Schwyz, Planungs- und Baugesetz, SRSZ 400.100 of 14 May 1987, § 70 para. 1: "Wohnwagen, Mobilheime und dergleichen dürfen zur Benützung für mehr als 48 Stunden nur auf bewilligten Campingplätzen aufgestellt werden." The provision is aimed at vehicles left standing, and its own 48-hour threshold shows it is not written against a tent pitched for a single night. § 18 para. 2 lit. g lists intensive-recreation zones for "Camping- und Zeltplätze" as a zone type, which is the zoning counterpart to the communal camping-zone article rather than a rule addressed to visitors. sz.ch. ↩
- Terrain analysis, 13 August 2026, from the federal terrain model on a 25 m grid over an 800 m box centred on the lake, 1'089 samples, all returned. The water mask was swept across the whole box rather than fetched at the point, which returned two water bodies, the Sihlseeli and one unnamed; 28 samples fall inside them and the mask was checked in both directions (the lake coordinate reads as water, a point 1.5 km away does not). Of 906 dry samples with a full slope neighbourhood, only 13 come in under 7 degrees, and all 13 also lie at least 25 m from any shore and at least 150 m from any registered building. Best of those: 2.7 degrees at 1'832.4 m, LV95 2'708'469 / 1'208'686, WGS84 47.020348 N / 8.865412 E, 112 m from the lake coordinate, 35 m from the water and 601 m from the nearest building; the flattest reading in the box is 1.8 degrees at 1'800.7 m, 300 m out. After masking, the most repeated dry elevation occurs four times, so no false plane remains. geo.admin.ch. ↩
- Swiss Alpine Club, information on bivouacking and wild camping. The SAC position is that a single, considerate, one-night bivouac above the treeline and outside protected areas is generally tolerated in Switzerland. Both halves of that qualifier hold at the Sihlseeli: at 1'825 m the basin is above the local treeline, and the federal sweep returns no protected area of any kind at the point. The SAC position is guidance rather than law, and it is not what makes a night here lawful; the absence of any prohibition is. sac-cas.ch. ↩
- Method note on the Schwyz cadastre. The RDPPF extract for this canton uses the same structure as the other German-speaking cantons in this series: the parcel sits under
GetExtractByIdResponse.extract.RealEstateand each restriction's geometry underGeometry[].Surfaceas a GeoJSON-style object. That is worth recording because it differs from the Vaud extract, where the parcel sits atItem.RealEstateand geometry arrives as GML-style rings; a parser written for one will silently read zero geometry from the other and report a confident, empty "nothing at the pin". Both restrictions on this parcel parsed as surfaces. map.geo.sz.ch. ↩ - Federal register of buildings and dwellings and the swisstopo gazetteer, queried 13 August 2026 around the lake: five registered buildings within 800 m, all in the Obersihl cluster, the nearest being Obersihl 6 at 638 m, then 642 m, 655 m, 665 m and 720 m. The gazetteer records the lake as "See Sihlseeli (SZ), Unteriberg". Note the spelling: a search for "Shilseeli" returns no match at all in the federal gazetteer, only fuzzy results from other cantons such as Schlössli in Appenzell Innerrhoden, Zurich, St. Gallen, Lucerne and Bern, and Schlissi in Appenzell Ausserrhoden. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩