Hirayama (45) does E9 6c/8a+ R

Yuji Hirayama is together with James Pearson and Caroline Ciavaldini climbing hard trad routes in Pembroke. Yuji has done The Big Issue E9 6c/8a+ R in Pembroke, "Placing all the gear on lead." The E-scale combines the difficulty and the danger of a route and it goes to E11. The "R" in the French scale stands for Risk for injuries and it goes to X = death potential. The 45-year-old has been setting new standards in all climbing disciplines around the world for almost 30 years. In 2000 he won the Lead World Cup overall and at the same time he was one of the leading onsight climbers in the world. He has also done several famous speed ascent on El Cap and last year he put up a three pitch 8b which tops out at 4 025 m on Kinabalu. Planet Mountain has the full report including a E9 flash by James and a E8 by Caroline etc