Mishka Ishi Sends V15 at Only 13 Years Old

Mishka Ishi from Japan has become the youngest climber and third woman to send V15 with her tick of Byaku-dou “The Road to Heaven” on Mount Hourai, Japan. Ishi started climbing at the age of six and has already climbed a number of V12s, V13s and a V14. Byaku-duo took Ishi 20 sessions over a year and has 22 hard moves.

The youngest person to have sent V15 before Ishi was Ashima Shiraishi with her send of Horizon on Mount Hiei when she was only 14 back in March 2016. She got the second ascent of the problem and became the first woman to send V15. Her second V15 was Sleepy Rave, also in 2016, in Australia.

All three of the above problems were established by Dai Koyamada in the past decade. He commented on 8a.nu, “I have been working on making the hard problems through this year in Japan and I first ascended the new 8C [V15] at Hourai, Aichi prefecture, Japan. The problem is called Byaku-dou (the meaning is “the road to the heaven” in the Buddhist world) and climbs a 150 to 160 degree roof. It’s separated to two parts with 22 moves, the first part is made from many tricky moves graded 8B [V13] and the second part is 8A+ [V12] which has a dynamic dyno. Just then, I was with Fred Rouhling, who tried the route and said the Byaku-dou is harder than Dreamtime, 8C [V15]. I myself think the grade of this problem is at least 8C.”

Motochika Nagao on Byaku-duo