UKC

First British Onsight of Strawberries for McClureNewsflash

© Marmot
Duncan Campbell UKC

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Steve McClure's Hand Picked Malham © Marmot
Steve McClure's Hand Picked Malham
© Marmot

Britain's top sport climber, Steve McClure has recently made the first British onsight ascent of Ron Fawcett's classic Tremadog test piece; Strawberries, E7 6b. 

Notorious for being tricky to onsight, due to having a blind sequence, Strawberries has seen just three onsight ascents since Ron climbed it in 1980.

Before Steve, all onsight ascents were from foreign climbers; Stefan Glowacz in 1987, Jorg Verhoeven in 2011 (UKC News Report) and Hansjorg Auer in 2012 (UKC News Report). In addition to this, it was also flashed by Felix Neumarker in 2013 with the gear in place and beta on the crux.

Many of Britain's best trad climbers have tried to onsight the route, including James McHaffie and Pete Robins, but none have succeeded until now.

Commenting on his Facebook page, Steve said: 

Stefan Glowacz on the first onsight of Strawberries, Tremadog © Uli Wiesmeier
Stefan Glowacz on the first onsight of Strawberries, Tremadog
© Uli Wiesmeier
"At last. The monster is slain. Strawberries onsight. One of the most legendary routes in British climbing. Saved it for years, then spent years desperately just trying to get on it, whatever the outcome. A route to do before you die, I wondered if it was going to slip away untried! And then everything just fell into place. Amazing route, as great as its reputation. But was it as hard?"

​We will bring you more information on this as soon as we have it.

Steve McClure is sponsored by: Beal, Five Ten, Marmot and Petzl

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Steve McClure

Steve McClure is one of the best rock climbers in the world, having climbed the hardest sport route in the UK at 9b, numerous new routes at the grade of 9a and onsighted many at 8b+. Despite being better known for his...

Steve's Athlete Page 46 posts 15 videos

Sponsored by: BMC, Five Ten, Marmot, Petzl & Rockcity
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Comments

Kemics
15 Jun, 2014
The term 'legend' is quite casually thrown around but McClure really does qualify! I love the image of him bumbling around crags self deprecatingly and quietly crushing!
DrGav
15 Jun, 2014
Looking forward to the write up. Superb!!!!!!!
JimboWizbo
16 Jun, 2014
Excellent
GrahamD
16 Jun, 2014
Bloody good effort to avoid picking up beta over all these years !
tim carruthers
16 Jun, 2014
I've always been at a loss to explain why this route is usually described as "Ron Fawcett's classic Tremadog testpiece". Surely it should be "Stefan Glowacz's classic Tremadog tespiece", particularly in view of the prevailing ethics at the time Fawcett climbed it?
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