Rock Climbing in Servoz

Fear not, I’m not claiming that winter is over, not by any means. Just that we are at that glorious intersection between two seasons when you can quite easily be skiing hard fast pistes in the morning and basking beside a sunny crag in the afternoon.

My first climb of this year was at Servoz, a 45m schist crag with around 35 bolted routes ranging from 3a to 7a with no walk-in and a café-bar with public parking right opposite. Most of the climbs are graded around 5-6 with lots of variation and a few overhangs to conquer. There are plenty of beginner-friendly routes towards the bottom with more challenging terrain higher up.

Given that I’ve not climbed at all over the winter I wasn’t expecting to be whizzing up to the anchor in record time but I was amazed by just how much strength I’ve lost! The spirit was willing but the flesh was pathetically weak.

The great thing about Servoz is that it stays in the sun for longer than anywhere else, so you can keep climbing until later in the day - we declared it to be beer o’clock at about 6pm but there were plenty of people carrying on into the early evening.

The easy access and family-friendly nature of the Servoz crag means that it can get very busy and there are often groups of children taking lessons here but if you don’t mind waiting for the occasional route and are happy to chill out and enjoy the sociable atmosphere then it’s a great choice for a sunny day.