For ten months, over the period September 2004 to June 2005, an eccentric team led by ex-SAS trooper, climber, author, explorer and TV presenter Bear Grylls, with Lt Cdr Alan Veal RN, team leader of the Royal Navy Raiders Freefall Parachute Display Team and explorer and balloonatic David Hempleman-Adams, planned to set the world record for the highest, formal, three course meal. This was to be the Champagne Mumm Altitude Challenge, aka The World’s Highest Formal Dinner Party.

Ultimately successful, this is their story, which is dedicated to my great friend Chris Thorn who sadly passed away on 9th July 2008. Blue Skies CT - we miss you!

Since this mini-site first appeared it has lain dormant, ignored and unloved. However, late in 2009 I received an email from Dr Ollie Bird who had done all the hypoxia trials and evaluation for the team at the RAF Centre for Aviation Medicine, RAF Henlow, asking whether I had any image files that he could use to show what he actually did at work. Having complied with this request, I decided to re-examine all the rest of the original RAW image files. After this somewhat exhausting operation I realised that only a fraction of the images shot by the team had ever seen the light of day. For the vast majority, if they didn’t fit the immediate requirements they were quietly forgotten. Having looked through over 35Gb of originals I decided to remaster all of them and then select a wider range to encapsulate the event. Some sections have been shortened - nobody wants to see endless shots of people around tables working on the planning - whilst others have been enlarged to give more of a flavour of the event.

On most pages you will find links to view those images relevant to that particular section of the Challenge. PLEASE NOTE: You will need to have Adobe Flash Player installed and enabled in your web browser. Go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer to download the installer. This site is tailored to work in Apple Safari 4 web browser which is industry standards compliant and may not work perfectly when viewed in Internet Explorer, which is not. To download Safari for PC or Mac, follow the link; http://www.apple.com/safari to download and install the most compliant browser currently available. Alternatively, Mozilla Firefox is also standards compliant and may be found here: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/

All images © Peter Russell 2005 unless credited otherwise

Previous