REXBURG, Idaho — An Idaho city council member has never been afraid to climb mountains. She scaled new heights last week as she reached the top of a popular mountain for the 100th time since the summer of 2017.
Bryanna Johnson, 42, of Rexburg, climbed Table Mountain in western Wyoming -- popularly known as Table Rock -- for the 100th time on March 16, East Idaho News reported.
The mountain, whose peak rises 11,111 feet above sea level, is located in the Teton Range near Grand Teton National Park.
“It’s gotten so much easier but every time at the end, I feel like, ‘Wow this is really hard’ and then you get up to the top (and) it’s so beautiful,” Johnson said. https://t.co/wYwkOVNJfM
— East Idaho News (@EastIDNews) March 27, 2024
Johnson, a member of the Rexburg City Council who is into her second term and an adjunct professor at Brigham Young University-Idaho, first climbed the mountain in August 2017 with her husband.
Jon Johnson, who teaches physics at BYU-Idaho, surprised his wife with a cake decorated with candles signifying “100,” according to the Rexburg Standard Journal.
“He surprised me by hauling up a whole cake,” Bryanna Johnson told the newspaper. “He knew it would be my 100th trip up. He took a big backpack, stuck a whole cake inside and put candles in it.”
The Johnsons reached the summit of Table Rock and met a group of seven men who also reached the top of the mountain.
“It turned out they were from Rexburg too,” Bryanna Johnson told the Standard Journal. “They ate the cake with us. It was fun.”
In 2020, Johnson hiked the mountain every month, including grueling ascents during the winter months, East Idaho News reported. It takes her between seven and nine hours to scale the peak in the winter. During the summer, it only takes about two hours, according to the Standard Journal.
The first time she hiked up Table Rock in the Teton Range was with her husband on their anniversary in August 2017. It also came after Johnson’s brother, Dean Mason died. She found the mountain climb as a peaceful way to ease her sorrow, according to East Idaho News.
“I feel like ever since, anything that’s hard in life, you at least have the mountains that are going to be the same,” she told the news outlet. “You go there and you see the same trees, the same rocks and the same peaks,” Johnson explained. “No matter what’s going on in your life, you know that they’re still going to be there giving you peace.”
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