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Almost buggered up pretty bad 14-Jan-2012 At 10:58:29 PM Olbert

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The weirdest thing happened to me the other day on a route...also one of the most dangerous things that has happened to me in a long while.

I was leading up a route as per usual when I got through the crux, clipped the bolt above the crux and proceeded on. Nothing unusual there. I then performed a fairly long strenuous move on slopey holds to a set of positive crimps. I was then far enough above that bolt for my foot to be about the same level but still another metre or so below the next bolt. At this point I heard a 'snap'. Unusual, was my first thought.

I looked down. My shoelace had clipped itself to the draw. Now, I was wearing Miuras which have a little knot tied into the end of each shoelace - this makes them hard to yank undone.

"Oh f---!" was basically my mindset. I knew falling would be a huuuuuge 'no no', I knew the next bolt was well out of reach, I knew that yanking my shoe off the bolt might not work because of the dam knots of the shoelaces and I knew reversing what I had just done would be hard, if not impossible, in my current pumped and scared state.

So here I was, clipped into the draw via the loop in my shoelace. I gave it a kick and nothing happened. I was getting more pumped and was trying to think through my options. I gave it a harder kick and again, nothing. 'Right,' I thought to myself 'if you dont yank this off, you're f---ed.'

Third time I reeeeaaaally kicked. This time it came off.

Hooooolllllly shit was I relieved.

Has this happened to anyone before? What could I have done if the shoelace hadnt have yanked off?