Guinness Book of Records -- 1990

The Social Climbers

The struggle to host the world’s highest dinner party.

Most people have an adventure deep inside them – a secret urge to drive across a continent, sail an ocean, or climb a mountain.

The Social Climbers is a tale of one such dream. An absurdly ridiculous dream which, carried out with epic incompetence, became a ludicrous reality.

Led by Chris Darwin (great-great-grandson of the famous Charles), Deirdre Rawlings, together with a party of nine inspired amateurs, including a 62-year-old grandfather, set off for Peru to create a bizarre visual joke: the world’s highest dinner party. Only two had any mountaineering experience, yet they chose to host the dinner on the summit of Peru’s highest and most unpronounceable mountain, Huascuaran – at 22,604ft (6,769 meters).

They had been warned about terrorism, blizzards, avalanches, frostbite and altitude sickness. But no one could have predicted the real hardships they would face: loss of libido, a documentary crew led by an obsessed German philosopher, an absurd love triangle and chronic flatulence; nor could they have foreseen the litany of injuries and disasters that would befall the expedition: malaria, bronchitis, Guardia, hemorrhoids, a ripped shoulder, cracked ribs, hypothermia, pregnancy and a frozen bottle of red wine.

Scott of the Antarctic collides with Monty Python in one of the most extraordinary true stories ever told.