Beverly Johnson

Beverly Johnson (22 April 1947 – 3 April 1994) was a pioneering rock climber and adventurer. Early life Johnson was born in Annapolis, Maryland and as the daughter of a Navy Officer travelled significantly in her early years. They settled in Arlington, Virginia and she attended Yorktown High School, graduating in 1965, later attending Kent State University where she trekked with the mountaineering club and the University of Southern California. After graduating from college her first job was making parkas in Sun Valley, Idaho later doing cross country ski instructing. Later she moved to Yosemite working on firefighting and search and rescue she was the first woman to lead a firefighter crew in Yosemite. Climbing At the age of 24, Beverly Johnson was already an established member of the Camp-4 community in Yosemite in 1971. She was part of the first all female climb of El Capitan with Sibylle Hechtel and the first woman to solo climb Dihedral wall of El Capitan over a period of 10 days in October 1978. Johnson first met her future husband Mike Hoover in about 1967 when he accidentally hit her with a rope whilst climbing different routes in Yosemite but they fell in love on a climbing expedition to Venezuela. They climbed Mt. Vinson in Antarctica for their honeymoon.