The dictionaries have it wrong: The summit isn’t the top. It’s only halfway. And what we do after the summit is even more important than what we did before. Few know this better than Kitty Calhoun, one of the greatest alpinists of her generation. Calhoun has survived so many epics—both on ascent and descent—that it’s hard to sum her up in just a few.

Perhaps Denali’s Cassin Ridge (VI 5.8 AI 4) in 1985 is a good place to start. After a rare female ascent when she and her partner ran out of food—common for Calhoun, whose climbs notoriously scrimp gear and food—stormbound for five days, their descent turned into a fight for survival fueled by only two cups of water per day per person.

Or maybe her visionary attempt at the first ascent of the North Face of Thalay Sagar (6,904m) in 1986? Calhoun survived eight days at 40 below, four without food, her “team” one other climber, Andy Selters—no radio, oxygen, basecamp support, or chance of outside help—while experimenting for the first time with a handmade portaledge anchored off ice screws on a vertical ice wall thousands of feet up.

What about when Calhoun became the first American woman to summit Dhaulagiri (8,167m) in 1987, after barely surviving an avalanche on ascent? Or tackling the immense West Pillar of Makalu (8,481m) in 1990—known for knife-edge ridges, breathtaking exposure, and 10,000 feet of some of the hardest technical climbing anywhere–where Calhoun became the first woman and only the fourth climber to top out?

For Calhoun, the list goes on at the risk of making the extraordinary sound mundane.