As of: 30 July 2026

Wild camping on the Widderfeld: there are two summits of that name, and a tent is prohibited on both

Somebody asked us about the Widderfeld without saying which one, and Switzerland has eleven of them. Only two are summits, and on both of those a tent is prohibited: on one by a communal zoning article, on the other by a federal ordinance whose boundary runs across the top.

Leon Helg
Leon Helg · Legal situation checked in July 2026 · Published 30 July 2026

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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.

What "wild camping" means here: one night. A small tent or a bivvy bag, up towards evening, gone in the morning. Not a base camp, not a camper van. Most Swiss bans are written against camping; whether a single night also falls under them depends on the exact wording, so this article checks that wording. The full difference: wild camping vs bivouacking.

First, work out which Widderfeld you mean

Wild camping on the Widderfeld cannot be answered until you say which Widderfeld. The national gazetteer returns eleven separate Widderfelds up in the hills, across four cantons, plus a street of house numbers at 517 metres in Wolfenschiessen that is not a mountain at all.1

Of the eleven, exactly two are classified as summits, and they are 17 kilometres apart:

  • A, Widderfeld, Schwarzenberg (LU), 2'075.7 m. The south-west end of the Pilatus ridge, above the Eigenthal, 2.4 kilometres from Pilatus Kulm with its hotels and its cogwheel railway. This is the exact name match and by far the busier mountain, and it is what an unqualified question almost always means.
  • B, Widderfeld Stock, Wolfenschiessen (NW), 2'351.3 m. A remote peak between the Melchtal and the Bannalp. Note the second word: somebody who meant this one would very likely have typed "Stock".

There is a third point that matters here, and it is not a summit. 193 metres south of Widderfeld Stock, still called simply Widderfeld, at 2'255.3 metres, the ground lies in Kerns, canton Obwalden. The gazetteer files it as a local field name rather than a peak. It is also the only one of the three where a tent is expressly allowed, and that is exactly why this article carries a single verdict of prohibited: both named summits are banned, and the point that is not banned is not a summit.

The remaining Widderfelds are field names in the Bernese Oberland, in Saxeten, Lauterbrunnen twice, Grindelwald, Oberried am Brienzersee, Schwanden bei Brienz and Därstetten. None of them is a place anybody names as a destination, and none is covered here.

If you cannot tell which one you meant, assume the Pilatus. It is the likelier match, and the practical consequence is the same in either direction: on both summits the answer is no, and in both cases the ground you actually want is over the boundary in Obwalden.

The two answers

A, the Pilatus Widderfeld: prohibited by the commune's own zoning reglement, and the interesting part is that the rule reaches the summit at all. Schwarzenberg puts this ground in a landscape protection zone, and one sentence of the reglement decides the question.

"Im Gebiet 'hinteres Eigenthal' ist das Aufstellen von Wohnwagen, Zelten und dergleichen nur auf bewilligten Campingplätzen / Stellplätzen erlaubt."Bau- und Zonenreglement der Gemeinde Schwarzenberg, art. 28 para. 5, Landschaftsschutzzone I: in the "hinteres Eigenthal" area, putting up caravans, tents and the like is permitted only on licensed campsites and pitches. Adopted at the communal assembly of 6 July 2022, approved by government decision no. 1102, in force since 31 October 2023.

"Im Gebiet hinteres Eigenthal" sounds like the valley floor, 670 metres below the summit. It is not. Lucerne publishes its binding zoning as vector data, and each polygon carries the reglement article and a remark field. Schwarzenberg has three landscape protection zone I polygons, and exactly one of them carries the remark "HINTERES EIGENTHAL", tied to article 28, in force since 31 October 2023 under government decision no. 1102. We ran a strict point-in-polygon test over its 260 vertices: the Widderfeld summit is inside it. Twenty metres east is outside. So the ban reaches the ridge crest, and that is verified geometry rather than an interpretation of a place name.2

What it costs, written the way you should plan for it. The reglement's penalty article names article 28 paragraphs 2 to 6 expressly, so paragraph 5 is squarely inside it, and it borrows its figures from the cantonal nature and landscape act: a fine of up to CHF 20'000, and in light cases up to CHF 5'000. One tent, one night, no damage is a light case. So CHF 5'000 is the number to plan around and CHF 20'000 is the ceiling of the article rather than a realistic exposure. Worth one line for anyone who has read our other pieces: this CHF 20'000 is a genuine cantonal Lucerne figure written into a Lucerne act, not the federal game-reserve number that gets misquoted across the internet.

And there is no consent route here. At several places we cover, the lawful way in is to ask: the alp tenant, the Senn, the landowning corporation. That does not work on this summit. Article 28 is public zoning law, not a property right, so no owner, tenant or corporation can waive it for you, and asking politely changes nothing about the legal position. The only lawful tent inside that perimeter is one on a licensed campsite or pitch, and there is none up there.

The ban is also not new. Its ancestor, a cantonal ordinance for the protection of the Eigental from 1967, carried almost the same sentence, and it was repealed on 14 May 2024 with retroactive effect to 30 October 2023, the day before the communal reglement took effect. The tent ban in the Eigental has therefore run without a gap since 1967; it simply moved from cantonal to communal law. One more Lucerne ordinance covers this exact summit and is worth naming only so nobody mistakes it for a camping rule: the 1953 plant protection ordinance for the Pilatus area uses the Widderfeld as a survey corner, and prohibits picking flowers and digging plants up, nothing else.3

B, Widderfeld Stock: prohibited by federal ordinance, and by a single metre. The summit lies 1.0 metre inside the federal game reserve Hutstock, object no. 11, which is registered as an area with integral protection rules. The federal game reserve ordinance prohibits free tenting and camping in the reserves, all year, with no zone qualifier, and the federal geodata carries that regime on the object itself: "freies Zelten und Campieren ist verboten".4

The number here is CHF 150 and nothing else. The Confederation wrote a fixed on-the-spot penalty for exactly this offence and that is it. The CHF 20'000 that gets quoted for game reserves is the ceiling of the hunting act in ordinary proceedings, which is where a case goes only if you decline the summary procedure or do not pay. Note also who may lift the ban: exceptions under this provision belong to the canton, not to the landowner, and no exercised Nidwalden authorisation for camping in Hutstock exists.

A second and independent rule sits on the same summit. Nidwalden's plant protection area no. 2, "Widderfeld und Bockialp", covers the top, and the cantonal ordinance behind it prohibits picking, digging up, tearing out, damaging and covering native wild plants and fungi, punished with a fine under the cantonal nature protection act. A tent floor covers plants. We found no case applying that word to a camper, so treat it as a plausible reading rather than settled law. It changes nothing about the verdict, which the federal ban already carries on its own.5

193 metres south, the answer flips, and this is the part worth carrying home. The Kerns point is 186.6 metres outside the reserve and clean on every other layer, and Obwalden has the plainest camping statute in the country.

"Zum einmaligen Übernachten darf ein Zelt, ein Wohnwagen oder ein Wohnmobil ohne Bewilligung ausserhalb bewilligter Campingplätze aufgestellt werden, wenn keine öffentlichen oder privaten Interessen beeinträchtigt werden."Gesetz über das Campieren des Kantons Obwalden, GDB 971.4, art. 8 para. 1, in force since 1 March 2015: for a single overnight stay a tent, caravan or motorhome may be put up outside licensed campsites without a permit, provided no public or private interests are impaired. Para. 2 adds that the single overnight stay is at your own risk.

Keep the last clause of that sentence, because it is the hinge: the permission is conditional on not impairing public or private interests, and it is the clause people drop when they quote the article. This is the same provision that puts Matthorn and Hochstollen in our register as legal, and it applies on the Obwalden side of both Widderfelds.6

The canton itself draws the line in writing. Obwalden's forestry and landscape office published a notice on 1 June 2025 saying that a single overnight stay outside licensed campsites is generally permitted, but that in protected areas an absolute camping prohibition applies, and it names them: the Glaubenberg mire landscape and the federal game reserves, "z.B. Huetstock, Gemeinde Kerns". It extends the prohibition expressly to Biwakieren, and it states that signs on the ground make it visible. So the canton that grants you the one-night tent also tells you where it stops, and this reserve is on its list by name.7

Does any of this catch a bivouac without a tent? Three different answers, which is exactly why the wording matters. Inside the Hutstock reserve, yes: the prohibition covers "Campieren" as well as "Zelten", and the canton's own notice spells out Biwakieren. On the Pilatus Widderfeld, not on the literal wording: the reglement bans putting up caravans, tents "und dergleichen", and nothing is put up when you lie down in a sleeping bag, though a hooped bivvy bag is arguably one of the like. That is an inference and not text, we label it as such, and the terrain rules that summit out anyway. On the Obwalden side the question does not arise: if a tent is expressly permitted, sleeping out without one is permitted too.

Would anybody sleep on either summit anyway

Before the law, the terrain, because on both of these summits the terrain answers first.

On the Pilatus Widderfeld there is no flat ground at all. Twenty metres east of the pin the ground has dropped 140 metres. That is a cliff, and it is the whole east side, which happens to be the direction in which you leave the ban zone: on this summit the way out of the prohibition is off the mountain. Everything else within about 150 metres runs at 25 to 45 per cent, and there is no cell under 12 per cent anywhere in a 300-metre box. A marked hiking path passes 9 metres from the summit, so you would also be pitching on a walked ridge in full view of it.8

Widderfeld Stock is worse. Everything within 150 metres of the top is steeper than 45 per cent, and the one gentle line, the east ridge, runs deeper into the game reserve rather than out of it. The only campable ground next to that summit is the ground you may not use. A marked path passes 3 metres from the top.

Where the ground actually is, in both cases: a short walk into Obwalden.

  • Beside the Pilatus Widderfeld: E 2'659'897 / N 1'202'279, about 2'016 m, 273 metres west-south-west of the summit and 60 metres below it, 8.1 per cent slope, in Alpnach OW. We confirmed point-in-polygon that it lies outside the hinteres Eigenthal perimeter, and every other layer is empty there apart from the BLN landscape Pilatus, which binds authorities and not campers.
  • Beside Widderfeld Stock: E 2'668'126 / N 1'187'319, 2'343.8 m, 73 metres west-south-west of the summit, 5.2 per cent slope, in Kerns OW, outside the reserve. A near-flat shelf above 2'300 metres, 73 metres from a summit where the same night costs CHF 150.

One reason we do not send you to the flatter-looking shelves. East-south-east of the Kerns point there are three benches at 6 to 7 per cent that read better on a map. They sit 50 to 66 metres from a working alp building at about 2'259 metres, Alp Widderfeld, one of the highest alps in Switzerland. Fifty metres from somebody's working hut is not a wild camp, it is camping in their yard. The 2'343.8-metre shelf is 302 metres from that hut and out of sight of it, which is why it is the one in the list.8

Nobody appears to have slept up there. Across six hiking portals we found no bivouac or wild-camping report for Widderfeld Stock at all. That silence is a finding rather than a gap in the research: this is an unclaimed spot, not a known one.

  • Beside the Pilatus Widderfeld: the Obwalden shelf 273 metres west-south-west, at about 2'016 m in Alpnach, legal for one night under the Obwalden camping act. Do not carry on south-west along the crest: the Glaubenberg mire landscape, where camping, Lagern and bivouacking are all prohibited, begins about 1.2 kilometres from that pitch, and the Mittaggüpfi in that direction is named in a police notice as a place where camping is banned.7
  • Beside Widderfeld Stock: the 2'343.8-metre shelf in Kerns, 73 metres west-south-west of the summit, legal for one night, outside the reserve and well away from the alp hut.
  • Whom to ask, out of courtesy rather than obligation. On the Pilatus side, the Alpkäserei Lütholdsmatt / Tumli, Thomas Albert, 079 630 03 77, works the alp from about 1'200 to 2'000 metres and publishes no overnight accommodation, so that is a courtesy call and not a bed. On the Kerns side the landowning body is the Korporation Kerns, 041 666 31 00, and the alp itself is worked by the Alpgenossenschaft Lutersee, whose alp law is being rewritten with adoption planned for late autumn 2026. Neither needs to be asked for a lawful one-night tent.
  • There is no tent fee here to pay. No published pitch tariff exists for any alp on either massif and none surfaced by word of mouth either. If you have read our Alpstein pieces, do not carry those arrangements over: the CHF 7 at the Seealpsee and the CHF 15 on the Fälenalp are Alpstein-specific and there is no equivalent here.9
  • Not on either summit, in any season. Not on the Widderfeld above the Eigenthal, and not on Widderfeld Stock.

General rules for wild camping

This applies wherever you are genuinely allowed to sleep outside, which on these two mountains means the Obwalden ground beside each summit and neither summit itself. Both pitches are grazed alp ground with a working alp within walking distance, so: one night, small group, no fire, no trace, and move if a Senn asks you to.

  • 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.

Two mountains carry this name and their rules have nothing to do with each other. Three things are moving: the alp law of the Alpgenossenschaft Lutersee is being rewritten with adoption planned for late autumn 2026, the communal reglement lists of Kerns, Wolfenschiessen and Alpnach could not be enumerated, and ownership of the Lucerne parcel under the Widderfeld summit is not in public data. Before every tour, check which Widderfeld you are actually going to, 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.

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Frequently asked questions

How many mountains are called Widderfeld?
Eleven places carry the name, and only two of them are summits. Widderfeld in Schwarzenberg LU, 2'075.7 m, at the south-west end of the Pilatus ridge, and Widderfeld Stock in Wolfenschiessen NW, 2'351.3 m, 17 kilometres away. A third point 193 m south of Widderfeld Stock is also called Widderfeld, 2'255.3 m in Kerns OW, but the gazetteer files it as a local field name rather than a peak. The rest are field names in the Bernese Oberland, plus a street of house numbers at 517 m in Wolfenschiessen that is not a mountain.
Can you wild camp on the Widderfeld above the Eigenthal?
No. Art. 28 para. 5 of the Schwarzenberg zoning reglement allows caravans, tents and the like in the hinteres Eigenthal area only on licensed campsites and pitches, and the canton's binding zoning vector data returns that perimeter at the summit coordinate itself, not just on the valley floor. The penalty article names art. 28 paras. 2 to 6 expressly: up to CHF 20'000, and up to CHF 5'000 in light cases. One tent for one night is a light case, so CHF 5'000 is the figure to plan around.
Would a landowner's permission help on the Pilatus Widderfeld?
No, and this is the difference from several other spots we cover. Art. 28 is public zoning law rather than a property right, so no owner, alp tenant or corporation has anything to waive. Asking is good manners and it does not change the legal position. The only lawful tent inside that perimeter is one on a licensed campsite or pitch, and there is none up there.
What does a tent cost on Widderfeld Stock?
CHF 150, as a fixed on-the-spot penalty. That is the tariff the Confederation set for free tenting or camping in a federal game reserve, in annex 2 no. 12005 of the fixed-penalty ordinance, citing the hunting act together with art. 5 para. 1 lit. e of the game reserve ordinance. Do not use the CHF 20'000 figure here: that is the ceiling of the hunting act in ordinary proceedings, which is where a case goes only if you decline the summary procedure or do not pay.
Does the ban catch a bivouac without a tent?
Inside the Hutstock reserve, yes. On the Pilatus Widderfeld, not on the literal wording. The federal prohibition covers Campieren as well as Zelten, and canton Obwalden's own notice on reserve camping names Biwakieren expressly, so sleeping out without a tent inside the reserve is caught. The Schwarzenberg reglement bans putting up caravans, tents and the like, and nothing is put up when you lie down in a sleeping bag, though a hooped bivvy bag is arguably one of the like. We flag that as an inference rather than text, and the terrain rules that summit out regardless: there is no cell under 12 per cent slope in a 300-metre box.
Is there a fee for pitching on the alp here?
None exists in public, for either massif. No alp on the Pilatus Widderfeld or on the Widderfeld Stock ridge publishes a tent-pitch tariff, and no word-of-mouth arrangement surfaced either. The word-of-mouth figures we publish for the Alpstein, CHF 7 at the Seealpsee and CHF 15 on the Fälenalp, are specific to those alps and do not transfer. On the Obwalden side no fee is owed for a lawful one-night tent in any case, because art. 8 is a statutory permission rather than a consent regime.
Leon Helg

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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Sources

  1. Swiss gazetteer and official federal geodata, queried 30 July 2026. A sweep for the name returns eleven Widderfelds up in the hills across four cantons, plus a street of house numbers at Widderfeld 1 to 32, 6386 Wolfenschiessen, at about 517 m, which is not a mountain. Exactly two are classified as summits: Widderfeld, Schwarzenberg LU, LV95 2'660'137 / 1'202'409, 2'075.7 m, and Widderfeld Stock, Wolfenschiessen NW, 2'668'195 / 1'187'342, 2'351.3 m, 17.1 km apart. The third point that matters, Widderfeld, Kerns OW, 2'668'206 / 1'187'149, 2'255.3 m, is filed as a local field name rather than a peak; the remaining entries are field names in Saxeten, Lauterbrunnen twice, Grindelwald, Oberried am Brienzersee, Schwanden bei Brienz and Därstetten. Commune attribution was taken from the current-year records of the federal boundary dataset rather than from its historical ones, which for these points return the same communes throughout. Every protected-area query ran with an invalid-layer control returning HTTP 400 federally and an explicit service exception cantonally, so empty results are genuine absences rather than silent failures. map.geo.admin.ch. ↩
  2. Bau- und Zonenreglement der Gemeinde Schwarzenberg, adopted at the communal assembly of 6 July 2022, approved by government decision no. 1102, in force since 31 October 2023. Art. 28 para. 5, Landschaftsschutzzone I: "Im Gebiet 'hinteres Eigenthal' ist das Aufstellen von Wohnwagen, Zelten und dergleichen nur auf bewilligten Campingplätzen / Stellplätzen erlaubt." Art. 53 para. 2: "Wer die Vorschriften in den Art. 28 Absatz 2 bis 6, Artikel 29 Absatz 4, Artikel 30 Absatz 5 und Artikel 32, dieses Bau- und Zonenreglements verletzt, wird gemäss § 53 Abs. 2b NLG mit Busse bis zu 20'000 Franken, in leichten Fällen bis zu 5'000 Franken bestraft." Paragraph 5 is therefore named expressly, and the figures come from sec. 53 para. 2 lit. b of the cantonal nature and landscape act, SRL 709a, which makes this CHF 20'000 a genuine cantonal Lucerne ceiling. Scope verified against the canton's binding zoning vector dataset, which returns at the summit coordinate a Landschaftsschutzzone I polygon carrying BZR article 28, the remark "HINTERES EIGENTHAL", legal status in force, date of validity 31 October 2023 and government decision no. 1102; it is the only polygon in the commune carrying that remark. A strict point-in-polygon test over its 260 vertices puts the summit inside it and ground 20 m east outside. The underlying land-use zone is agricultural, BZR art. 18. Art. 27 para. 2 separately bans caravans and tents in nature protection zones, but no such zone reaches this summit. schwarzenberg.ch. ↩
  3. Historical continuity, and the Lucerne cantonal layer checked and empty. SRL 714, Verordnung zum Schutze des Eigentals of 12 October 1967, sec. 14 Campieren, carried the same campsite-only rule and was repealed on 14 May 2024 with retroactive effect to 30 October 2023, the day before the communal reglement took effect, so the prohibition has run without a gap since 1967. SRL 716, Verordnung über den Pflanzenschutz im Pilatusgebiet of 24 August 1953, is still in force and uses the Widderfeld summit as a survey corner in sec. 1, but sec. 2 para. 1 prohibits only picking flowers and digging up or tearing out plants, and its CHF 2'000 fine in sec. 6 attaches to that paragraph alone: it is a named cantonal ordinance that covers this pin and says nothing about camping. Canton Lucerne itself has no wild-camping or bivouac prohibition. The consolidated texts of the contravention act, the nature and landscape act, the cantonal hunting act and its ordinance and the cantonal forest act contain no camping wording at all; the planning and building act, sec. 174, requires a permit only for camping use of land for more than 30 days, which a single night is not; the moor protection ordinance does prohibit caravans and tents, but no perimeter of it is anywhere near this summit, the nearest mire landscape being 1'476 m to the south-west. The word Biwak appears in none of them. Schwarzenberg publishes no police reglement and no separate camping reglement, and no wildlife rest zone touches the summit on either the federal or the cantonal layer. srl.lu.ch. ↩
  4. Verordnung über die eidgenössischen Jagdbanngebiete (VEJ, SR 922.31), art. 5 para. 1 lit. e: free tenting and camping is prohibited, the use of official campsites is reserved, and the cantons may authorise exceptions. The provision carries no zone qualifier, which is moot here because Hutstock is registered as an area with integral protection rules. The federal inventory returns at the Widderfeld Stock summit object no. 11, Hutstock, 3'502.9 ha, and the federal wildlife-protection layer carries the regime on the object itself: legally binding, 1 January to 31 December, with the note "freies Zelten und Campieren ist verboten". Point-in-polygon against the reserve geometry, 3'034 vertices, puts the summit 1.0 m inside and the Kerns point 186.6 m outside; you leave the reserve by stepping south or west off the top, and that is true at this summit only, since the reserve covers a great deal of Kerns further south. The penalty is the fixed on-the-spot fine of CHF 150 in annex 2 no. 12005 of the Ordnungsbussenverordnung (OBV, SR 314.11), which cites art. 18 para. 1 lit. e and para. 3 of the hunting act together with VEJ art. 5 para. 1 lit. e; the CHF 20'000 in the hunting act is the ceiling in ordinary proceedings and is not what a camper faces. The Fedlex page for the VEJ serves a JavaScript shell to fetchers, so the letter designation rests on our own verification against the consolidated federal texts on 30 July 2026, corroborated by the federal geodata attribute quoted above and by the cantonal notice at source 7. fedlex.admin.ch. ↩
  5. Nidwalden plant protection area no. 2, "Widderfeld und Bockialp und anschliessender Südhang von Oberarni", dated 20 February 2001, returned by the cantonal map service at the Widderfeld Stock summit. Verordnung über den Schutz bedrohter Tiere und Pflanzen, NG 331.13, sec. 5 para. 1, in force since 1 January 2026: "In den Pflanzenschutzgebieten ist jedes Pflücken, Ausgraben, Ausreissen, Beschädigen und Überdecken von einheimischen wildwachsenden Pflanzen und Pilzen verboten." The penalty comes from art. 46 of the cantonal nature protection act, NG 331.1, a fine with no ceiling stated in the article. The ordinance does not name tents and we found no case applying "Überdecken" to a camper, so the reading is flagged rather than asserted. Canton Nidwalden has no general wild-camping or bivouac statute: the police act, the cantonal contravention act, the cantonal hunting act, the wildlife rest area ordinance and both nature protection enactments were searched in their consolidated versions and return nothing for camping, tenting, bivouacking, overnighting or Lagern, and the planning act defines a campsite as land made available regularly and for longer than a month, which a single private tent is not. gesetze.nw.ch. ↩
  6. Gesetz über das Campieren des Kantons Obwalden, GDB 971.4, in force since 1 March 2015 and not repealed. Art. 6 is the general rule that camping outside licensed campsites is not permitted, art. 8 para. 1 is the express one-night exception quoted in the text, art. 8 para. 2 adds that the single overnight stay is at your own risk, and art. 11 attaches a fine to camping without a permit. The conditional clause in art. 8 para. 1, that no public or private interests may be impaired, is part of the provision and is quoted in full here because it is the hinge and because it is routinely dropped when the article is quoted. This is the same provision on which Matthorn and Hochstollen carry a legal verdict in our register. At both Obwalden pitches named in this article every federal and cantonal layer is empty apart from a communal hazard zone and, on the Pilatus side, the BLN landscape Pilatus, object 1605, which binds authorities rather than campers; a positive control inside the Glaubenberg mire landscape correctly returned that perimeter, so the empty results are genuine. gdb.ow.ch. ↩
  7. Amt für Wald und Landschaft des Kantons Obwalden, notice of 1 June 2025: a single overnight stay outside licensed campsites is generally permitted in the canton, but "In Schutzgebieten jedoch gilt ein absolutes Campierverbot. Hier sind das Campieren, Biwakieren sowie das Abstellen von Wohnmobilen ausdrücklich untersagt. Dieses Verbot betrifft folgende Gebiete: Moorlandschaft Glaubenberg, Jagdbanngebiete (z.B. Huetstock, Gemeinde Kerns)", with a fine for breaches and signs posted visibly in the areas concerned. That notice is what settles the tentless-bivouac question inside the reserve, and it is the canton's own framing of the reserve ban as the exception to its art. 8 permission. Kantonspolizei Obwalden, 10 July 2024, separately names the Mittaggüpfi in the commune of Alpnach and the Seewensee and Rickhubel in the commune of Sarnen as places where camping is prohibited; the Mittaggüpfi lies 3.2 km west-north-west of the Widderfeld summit and 2.9 km from the Obwalden pitch, and the Glaubenberg mire landscape perimeter behind that prohibition starts 1.2 km south-west of the pitch. Obwalden's 2023 and 2025 patrol and fine waves happened on that Glaubenberg ridge and not on either Widderfeld, and no wild-camping fine was found in canton Nidwalden between 2019 and 2026. ow.ch. ↩
  8. Terrain and pitches, 30 July 2026, from the federal elevation model on a 10 m grid with central-difference slopes. Widderfeld LU: 20 m east of the summit the ground is at 1'935.7 m, a drop of 140 m, and that is the whole east side; everything else within about 150 m runs at 25 to 45 per cent and there is no cell under 12 per cent in a 300 m box; a marked path passes 9 m from the summit with no closures registered, and the nearest buildings are 501 m away. The flattest real ground within 300 m is E 2'659'897 / N 1'202'279, about 2'016 m, 8.1 per cent, 273 m west-south-west, in Alpnach OW and outside the hinteres Eigenthal perimeter by point-in-polygon. Widderfeld Stock: everything within 150 m of the top is steeper than 45 per cent, the north face drops 138 m in 100 m, and the gentler east ridge at 12 to 25 per cent begins 250 to 300 m east, which is deeper inside the reserve; a marked path passes 3 m from the summit. The recommended shelf is E 2'668'126 / N 1'187'319, 2'343.8 m, 5.2 per cent, in Kerns OW, outside the reserve, 302 m from the alp building at E 2'668'296 / N 1'187'069, about 2'259 m, which the federal building layer confirms; three flatter benches 95 to 122 m east-south-east of the Kerns point sit 50 to 66 m from that building and are not recommended for that reason. Both summits are far above the tree line, and the nearest binding wildlife rest zone, 1'321 m to the north-north-west, runs 1 December to 30 April and is irrelevant to a summer night. Across six hiking portals no bivouac or wild-camping report for Widderfeld Stock was found at all. api3.geo.admin.ch. ↩
  9. Ground truth, and what could not be established. Alpkäserei Lütholdsmatt / Tumli, Thomas Albert, Brünigstrasse 59, 6053 Alpnachstad, 079 630 03 77, works the alp from about 1'200 to 2'000 m below the Pilatus Widderfeld, 542 m from the summit, and its published answer on overnight accommodation is no. Korporation und Alpgenossenschaft Kerns, Sarnerstrasse 1, 6064 Kerns, 041 666 31 00, is the landowning body on the Obwalden side of Widderfeld Stock and publishes no camping rule; the alp itself is worked by the Alpgenossenschaft Lutersee, one of Nidwalden's eight Gemeinalpen, whose special alp law is being rewritten with adoption planned for late autumn 2026, so it is worth re-checking after that. No published tent-pitch tariff exists for any alp on either massif and none surfaced by word of mouth, so the arrangements we publish for the Alpstein do not transfer here; the Zentralschweiz alp and straw-mattress rates that do exist, CHF 30 to 35 per adult with breakfast, are bed prices and not tent fees. Open gaps, stated rather than papered over: ownership of Lucerne parcel 819 under the summit could not be retrieved, because Lucerne does not publish land-register ownership as open data and the cadastral extract endpoints refuse access; the tenants of Alp Widderfeld and Alp Gruobi are not published anywhere, and the Korporation Kerns number is the route to both; and the communal reglement lists of Kerns, Wolfenschiessen and Alpnach render in JavaScript, so "no communal camping rule" in those three is carried over from our earlier cantonal audits rather than re-verified on the day. korporation-kerns.ch. ↩

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