Finding the right climbing partner is critical.
It has to be someone you trust with your life, someone with whom you can communite, someone you want to share the highs and lows.
Ellie Briggs, 38, found her perfect partner 7 1/2 years ago -- a Siberian husky she named Loki Eddison.
Since then, the adorably bad ass dog has become the first to climb all 58 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks and the first service dog to summit 14,411-foot Mount Rainier in Washington state.