Very often, some of the most inspirational stories extend from places and people who, at one point or another, were depleted of happiness. So lost that they had to prove something great to themselves. “It was either doing something great or lying in bed, depressed, for the rest of my life. I chose the former,” says the first woman amputee to have ever climbed Everest, Arunima Sinha.

The year 2011 is where Sinha’s story begins. The then 26-year-old is said to have resisted a group of chain snatchers, when the struggle resulted in her fall from the moving train, and subsequent amputation of one of her legs.

For four months she was hospitalised. Spending this amount of time incapacitated is not easy for anyone, however. Sinha was an ex-national volleyball player and avid football player. Her need for physical activity took quite a toll on her, prompting her to call the first Indian woman to climb Everest, the eminent Bachendri Pal, asking if she could train at the athlete’s adventure foundation.

Sinha trained two years before climbing Everest, spending her entire first year of training in the hills of Uttarakhand. Sinha explained to Conde Nast “I trained without a break for two years, even climbing Island Peak in Nepal (over 20,000ft) for practice,” a testament to unwavering dedication. Still, that was just the training.

Sinha’s courage was cut from a truly special cloth as she fought every moment of her 52 day summit, traversing a terrain that physically bars most bipedal climbers from ascending it. During her climb, she sweat so profusely she feared her leg would slip out of her prosthetic leg. And when she was in dire need of extra oxygen, a stray tank helped her steady her lungs. Somehow, she persevered with what we can only attribute to sheer guts and gumption, completing every foot of the 29,000 feet ascent and the 29,000 feet descent.

Since then, the Padma Shri awardee has not stopped climbing. Instead, she has carried forward to become the first female amputee to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. Elbrus, Mt. Kosciusko, Mt. Carstensz Pyramid, Mt. Aconcagua and Mt. McKinley. It appears there truly ain’t no mountain high enough to keep her away.