James Scarborough
James Scarborough is a school teacher who has 20 years of climbing experience. He began climbing at the age of 13, and after four years set the scene on fire with his repeat of Sperm Bitches (31) at only 17 years of age, which 2 years later he returned, and soloed. After several years of redpointing some of Australia’s hardest sport routes, his roped achievements culminated with a repeat of Alpha Leather (32).
Soon after this, he turned to the dark side and spent several years travelling throughout Australia and the world repeating boulder problems up to V13 (including Unendliche Geschichte V13, Voigas V13; Magic Woods; La Proue V13; Cresciano, La Soucoupe V13; Chironico, Karma V12; Fontainebleau, Duel V12; Fontainebleau, Gandalf the Grey V13 FA; Mt Yarrowyck, The Sandman V13 FA; Bungonia Gorge, Ammagamma V13; The Grampians) and establishing thousands of problems up to V13 in areas from Armidale in country NSW, to the darkest depths of Bungonia Gorge and the meccas of Fontainebleau, Switzerland’s Ticino and India’s Hampi. During this time he was 2 times Australian Bouldering Champion, and when he wasn’t on the podium, he was toiling behind the scenes setting problems to keep the competition scene alive.
Over recent years he has turned his attention to developing boulder problems and testing his body and mind on highball testpieces in new areas throughout Tasmania. Most recently, he turned his attentions to an endurance adventure, and was part of a team that won the 2013 North Face and Australian Geographic Adventure Grant that saw him link three routes on exposed sea cliffs along the rugged south-east coast of Tasmania’s Tasman Peninsula, including the infamous Totem Pole, by sea-kayak, resulted in approximately 45km of open water sea-kayaking and 200m of adventurous rock climbing in 24 hours.