During our trip out west in 2011, I go to many amazing places and views. We arrived at Zion by car after we had visited Jackson Hole, Wyoming. My favorite parts were Zion National Park and Lake Powell. While we were in Zion, I got to see so many cool sceneries and do many things that normally I would not do here in Pittsburgh. The first thing we did in Zion was go zip lining. Zip lining is when you are attached to a harness and that harness is then hooked onto a rope. All you have to do is jump and ride coarse. We met our guides and got harnesses fitted with helmets too. We drove out to the middle of nowhere, and watched our guides set up the course. There was about a 300ft. drop and it was really long. The cannon where we were over looked the Colorado Plateau dessert. I could see bikers doing stunts in the background on trails. Apparently, biking out here in Zion is a true challenge. Once the guides had set up the course, they showed us how to zip line. I was voted to go first. I was really excited and not the least bit scared. I stood on the ledge and prepared to jump. Before I jumped Tom, the main guide, asked me to jump off the cliff, turn around, and yell zip lining rocks as loud as I could! He had asked me to do this because he was filming a video of my family and I zip lining. I did, and it was so much fun! It felt like you were jumping off a cliff into nothingness. The first couple times made my stomach lurch because of the drop, but I soon got used to it and had a blast. I will never forget this experience of a lifetime. After zip lining, we drove back to Zion and went on a riverside walk. There was a beautiful creek that cut through the entire park. My brother Ryan and I decided to swim in the forty two degree temperature water. It felt so good because it was one hundred and four degree temperature out. The next day in Zion, we had planned a trip to go canyoneering with a guide named Greg. Canyoneering is when you repel into a canyon and then explore it while descending further downwards. He took us to a canyon a really far way away from Zion. We first had to repel down into the canyon which was about 150ft. Repelling was a lot of fun because I had nothing to hold onto but the rope, and there were parts where I had to go around parts of the rock that jutted outward. We walked through the cannon, and we explored parts that we could chute down, or we had to elevate ourselves up to get through the skinny parts. Canyoneering was different than walking around in a cave because there was an open area at the top, and also there was a more unique look to the canyon where we were. Some parts were really skinny and hard to pass through, but others were really big and open. Zion National Park is the most beautiful place on Earth. The scenery is amazing; especially the enormous rock structures that just go upward endlessly. The rock structures were so high it hurt to look at them because I ended up looking at the sun too. Dad and I had planned to get up at five am and hike angels landing. We had to get up early because it gets too hot during the day, so we would dehydrate. Angels Landing is a ten mile hike that for the last mile you have to use the chains put up to hold on because it is so steep. At the end of the trail, the description of the hike described whoever hiked this trail to be able to see and entire view of Zion National Park. Unfortunately, our alarm clocks didn’t go off so we never got to do the hike. As a family, we wanted to go on a nine mile hike upstream through a cavern, but it was closed because of flash flood warnings. We had a great time at Zion enjoying the scenery and fresh air. This part of our out west trip in 2011 was my favorite because of the beautiful scenery and cool hiking trails.