Utah mountain biker conquers Kilimanjaro on a broken leg

Hannah Otto pedaled her mountain bike 18 grueling miles at an average 12% gradient that kicks up to more than 40% in the last two miles where she scrambled over rocks with her bike strapped to her back to reach the top of Mount Kilimanjaro on Nov. 3. But that was only half the battle for the Utah professional mountain biker. She still had to ride down to become the first known woman climb and descend the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world at 19,341 feet in a single day. Two miles from the bottom, she slid out in some mud. She felt a bone snap in her left leg. She saw her femur and her lower leg moving in opposite directions. She tried to stand several times, but fell to the ground, screaming in pain. There was no one else around. “I said out loud, ‘I can’t believe I just broke my leg,’” Otto recounted to the Deseret News. For the next 10 minutes, she lay on her back in 2 to 4 inches of water, staring at the sky. She had a decision to make.

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