THE FAIL GUY
On his epic climbing expeditions around the world, from the sandstone towers of Chad to the overhanging cliffs of Borneo, James Pearson instinctively avoids the one element all climbers fear: water. This life-giving liquid can be lethal for climbers: rain fatally loosens climbing holds, rivers silently erode the stability of rocks, freak storms wash away fixed ropes, and even a trickle of sweat can cause strained fingers to slip from stone. But in August 2018 the 33-year-old professional climber from Matlock rewrote the rulebook by ascending the booming, spray-soaked Shomyo Falls – at 1,148ft, the tallest waterfall in Japan.
Accompanied by his French wife and fellow climber Caroline Ciavaldini, plus elite wall-crawlers Toru Nakajima and Yuji Hirayama from Japan, and Matty Hong from America, Pearson was experimenting with Sawanobori (‘stream climbing’) – a niche Japanese adventure in which climbers ascend a mountain river and climb every
