After leaving school, Grylls briefly hiked in the Himalayan mountains of Sikkim and West Bengal. From 1994-1997, he served in the British Army reserves with 21 SAS as a trooper trained in unarmed combat, desert and winter warfare, survival, climbing, parachuting, and explosives. Becoming a survival instructor, he was twice posted to North Africa. His time in the SAS ended as the result of a free fall parachuting accident the year before in Kenya, when his parachute failed to open, breaking three vertebrae.