Wild camping at the Zervreilasee

One page of 1974 communal law, and it carries its own exception

Wild camping at the Zervreilasee is settled the same way as the two lakes we have already answered in this commune. The federal and cantonal levels are quiet, and a single communal article does all the work. The instrument is the Polizeiverordnung der Gemeinde Vals, adopted by ballot on 20 May 1973 and in force since 1 May 1974. Its art. 7 is headed simply "Camping".¹

"Ausserhalb dieser Plätze ist auf Gebiet der Gemeinde Vals auf öffentlichem und privatem Boden ohne Bewilligung des Gemeinderates jedes Kampieren verboten. Dieses Verbot bezieht sich nicht auf das Biwak im Rahmen von einzelnen Bergtouren."Art. 7 para. 2: outside the designated places, all camping on the territory of the commune of Vals is forbidden on public and private ground without a permission from the Gemeinderat. This prohibition does not extend to the bivouac in the course of individual mountain tours.

Two sentences, and the second one is the whole answer. The commune wrote a broad ban and then carved the bivouac out of it by name. That is rarer than it sounds: most Swiss communal reglements ban "Campieren" and leave everyone arguing about whether a person in a bivvy bag is camping. Vals answered the question in advance.

So the split is clean. Put up a tent and you need a permission from the Gemeinderat. Lie down for one night without one, in the course of a mountain tour, and the prohibition does not reach you at all. That is why the verdict here is "it depends" rather than a flat yes: the thing most people mean by wild camping, a tent, is the thing that needs paperwork.

The words that close the usual back door

Read the first sentence again for "auf öffentlichem und privatem Boden". The ban reaches private land as well as public, and that closes the route that decides a lot of other Swiss spots. At the Fälensee or the Seealpsee the legal way in is the landowner's consent. Here the landowner cannot give you anything the reglement has already taken: only the Gemeinderat can permit a tent, on anybody's ground.

The same article is what decides the Guraletschsee and the Selvasee, both in this commune, so if you are planning a round of the Vals lakes the rule travels with you and does not change from basin to basin.

What it costs, and the fire rule people miss

The reglement carries its own penalty rather than borrowing one. Art. 18 sets fines from CHF 50 to CHF 500, and up to CHF 1'000 on repetition. That is the exposure for pitching a tent without the Gemeinderat's permission. It is a communal contravention, not a federal offence, and there is no fixed-penalty slip for it.¹

The rule that catches more people than the camping one is art. 9, the fire police article. It bans open fire in forest and on dry meadows and pastures, and the ban extends to cooking. At 1'860 metres on a dry August evening that covers essentially everywhere you would want to sit. A gas stove is the answer, and it is the answer this site gives everywhere anyway.¹

Worth being straight about what the bivouac exemption is not. It exempts the bivouac in the course of individual mountain tours. It is written for someone moving through on a tour, not for someone driving up, parking, and spending three nights by the water. Stretch it and you are back inside the ban, with the commune deciding what it thinks you were doing.

The maps, and the zone that shares the lake's name

Queried at the reservoir, LV95 2'727'505 / 1'158'873, terrain surface 1857.4 m, commune of Vals, the federal inventories come back empty across the board: no federal game reserve, no BLN site, no floodplain, no raised or flat bog, no mire landscape, no dry grassland, no national park zone. Each query ran alongside a deliberately invalid layer id, which the service answers with HTTP 400 while the real layers answered 200, so the zeros are genuine and not a broken request. The nearest federal game reserve is Greina, object no. 24, 4'719 m away, and it carries integral rather than partial protection, so it is worth knowing about if your tour continues west.²²

Then there is a cantonal wildlife rest zone actually called Zervreila, and it needs stating carefully, because the shared name makes it look like it covers the lake. It does not, in two separate ways.³

"Zervreila (Nr. 100.0) · Zutrittsverbot (zu Fuss und Wintersportarten) · Schutzzeit 20.12. bis 15.04. · rechtsverbindlich · Gemeindebeschluss 2001"The zone carries an access ban on foot and for winter sports, is legally binding, and applies only in its protection period from 20 December to 15 April.

First, geometry: the polygon sits entirely north-east of the reservoir and its nearest edge is 1'060 metres away on a bearing of 70 degrees. Second, and more useful, the restriction is seasonal. From 20 December to 15 April it is a genuine entry ban, on foot as well as on skis, and it is legally binding. Outside that window it does not bite. So for a summer bivouac at the lake it is not in play, and for a winter trip it is the first thing to check. The neighbouring Schwarzflua zone, no. 271.0, is 2'256 m off and carries a plain access ban of its own.³

The shore is the part that decides where you actually sleep

This is a reservoir in a steep trench, and the numbers are blunt about it. Sampling the federal elevation model on a 100 metre grid over a 5.2 kilometre box, with the whole lake inside it, the flattest land within 250 metres of the water anywhere around the lake is 14.2 degrees, at the south-western inflow. Tightening to a 50 metre grid over the inner 3.2 kilometres, there is no land under 10 degrees within 300 metres of the water at all.⁴

The gentle ground exists, but it is not by the lake. The benches that come in at 6.6 to 9.4 degrees sit 580 to 750 metres from the water and 340 to 400 metres above it, between 2'196 and 2'472 metres. That is the difference between this lake and the picture people arrive with: you do not camp at the Zervreilasee, you camp above it.

And the north-eastern end is its own answer. The Zervreila settlement, the dam and the power station sit 1.6 to 1.8 km that way, with the road from Vals ending there. That is infrastructure, not a pitch, and nothing in this article is an argument for sleeping next to it.

How to do it properly

The clean version needs no paperwork at all. Walk in as part of a tour, carry a bivvy bag rather than a tent, sleep one night, and you are inside the exemption art. 7 wrote for exactly that. Nobody has to be asked, because the prohibition does not extend to you.¹

Where to put it. Not on the shore, which is steep the whole way round, and not in the drawdown zone, which is bare, unstable and can be under water again with no notice at all: this is a working reservoir and the level is an operational decision, not a natural one. The benches several hundred metres above the lake are the honest answer, and they put you above the tree line on open ground where a considerate single night is at its least intrusive.⁴

The hut, if the weather turns. The Länta-Hütte of the Swiss Alpine Club sits about 5.5 km south-west of the lake at the head of the Länta valley, which is the natural continuation of the walk in from Zervreila. Vals village itself is about 5.2 km down the valley to the east-north-east with the full range of ordinary accommodation.⁵

Ground rules on top of the law, because this basin is small and busy in summer. Fire is out under art. 9, cooking included. Keep well clear of the dam and the power-station infrastructure. And if your tour runs on to the Guraletschsee or the Selvasee, the same art. 7 applies there, so plan the whole round on one rule rather than re-checking each lake.

General rules for wild camping

This applies wherever you end up around the Vals lakes, and the fire rule is the communal one rather than a suggestion: art. 9 bans open fire in forest and on dry meadows and pastures, cooking included.

• 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.

Communal reglements change and cantonal wildlife zones are redrawn, so check the current version before relying on any of this, and follow instructions on site. The terrain figures describe the ground and are not a safety assessment of your route, and a reservoir's water level is an operational decision that can change without warning. 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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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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