Career: On leaving the Army in 1997, Grylls reached the summit of Ama Dablam in the Himalayas, a peak Sir Edmund Hilary described as 'unclimbable'. He was the youngest British person to complete that feat, and also to climb Mount Everest and return alive. In 2000 he led the first team to circumnavigate the UK on personal watercraft. Five years later he headed another team which became the first to paramotor over the jungle plateau of the Angel Falls in Venezuela. In 2005, he hosted the highest-ever dinner party, which saw guests sat round a table slung under a hot air balloon. Grylls has written several best-selling books about his adventures and hosted such programmes as Escape to the Legion and Born Survivor, which has become a global smash.