Brendan Batt, 26, will be headed to Africa this summer to climb his fourth of the seven summits for his nonprofit, Hill and Batt. (Credit: Collin Richie)

Brendan Batt is the type of guy who goes surfing during a hurricane, and has seven solo skydives under his belt. He also has climbed three of the world’s seven tallest summits.

LSU vet school student Batt, 26, and his childhood friend Andrew Hillery, 27, founded Hill ‘n Batt in the wake of Hurricane Katrina – looking to “get back at mother nature” for the disaster, as their website states.

After successfully summiting Aconcagua – the highest mountain in the Americas, located in Argentina – and completing the first snowboard descent from Mt. Elbrus, in Russia, Batt narrowed his eyes last year on Mt. McKinley (a.k.a. Denali), the highest peak in North America, and one the most dangerous mountains to climb.

The trip was one he’ll never forget; the season was plagued by two fatal incidents, both of which occurred when Batt was on the mountain.

Now, he’s back in the safe confines of school life, and gearing up to tackle Mt. Kilimanjaro next year. Dig sat down with Batt to talk about the view from the highest peaks in the world.

Dig: How did you ever get into glacier climbing?

Brendan Batt: My best friend Andrew and I, we’ve always been into radical stuff. Not even knowing anything about glacier climbing, we said, “We should do this, we should go to the glacier climbing school.” We had no clue what we were talking about.

When we went to the school, during the introduction, we told them we were planning to do the seven summits, and the guides were laughing at us. We really didn’t have a clue what we were getting into.

After having gone through the class, when we made our first summit {on Mt. Baker, and then Mt. Rainier], we were both thought, “Wow, there’s something to this.” The combination of the beauty, and the hell you put yourself through, and the pressures from the external environment, creates something that I fell in love with.

Dig: When you reached the summit on Denali, you couldn’t see much because the wind was blowing up so much snow. Were you disappointed to miss out on the view?

BB: With Denali, the training that led up to it, and the four years that I had been thinking about that mountain – when I would be on the levee by my house, with a hundred pounds on my back, dragging a tire filled with concrete behind me...whenever I would feel defeated, I would just think about being on that summit ridge. When I was actually there, regardless of what the weather was doing, I thought, “I am actually here.”

We had a really lucky day when we were at fifteen to seventeen thousand feet. The guides told us it was very rare to have good weather there. That spot on the ridge has a lot of wind drift, but the day we had it, you could actually see the curvature of the earth.

Dig: Wow, that’s amazing. How did it feel?

BB: I felt really blessed to be up there. So many people, who are physically able to make up there, don’t get to because the weather shuts you down. Sometimes the conditions don’t allow you to do it.

Dig: You’ve already started training for Mt. Kilimanjaro this summer. How many hours a day do you spend training?

BB: You can’t really prepare yourself for what you’re going to have to do. Once I get closer to the trip, I’ll train for about two hours a day, and then once every week or two weeks, I’ll do six hours in a day. On Kilimanjaro, you’re climbing for seven or eight hours a day. You can work out as hard as you want to, but you’re not going to simulate the kind of stuff you put your body through on a seven hour day.

If I started pulling my pack with the sled now, come two or three months before the climb, it would just be so mentally draining. I wait until two or three months before the climb to put the pack on. It helps me get mentally prepared; as it gets close, I get fired up.

Dig: On your trip last year to Denali, the mountain saw an unusually high number of accidents (and deaths). Did you ever feel like you were risking your life?

BB: With the incidents that had happened, it made me more aware that there’s a chance you can die doing this. But at this point, there are some things in life that are bigger than life. I’m not really willing to die for one of these summits, but I’m willing to risk my life.

It’s a moment of clarity. I’ve been humbled a couple times by Mother Nature.

Dig: This summer, your nonprofit will help raise awareness and money for the Bengal Tiger. Do the causes you support help you get through the summits?

BB: I like being able to pair climbing with something I believe in. I’m not a very political person. Anytime I can raise awareness for something I believe in, and especially with climbing, that’s great. If I can get one message across, more important than any of the charity stuff, it’s that the human spirit is still alive. Too many people allow themselves to inhibit themselves from doing something great.

For information on the nonprofit Hill ‘n Batt, or to donate, visit www.HillNBatt.com.