After two decades of hiking up and down the Smokies mountain trails, I enjoyed the following world-famous hikes out West. Each hike required trial runs of shorter hikes, because they were fairly dangerous. I know of three different groups of MSU students who were not able to complete these hikes: one group had to carry one hiker with a twisted ankle off of the trail in the dark; another group was marooned for three days by a swollen stream in Hawaii; a third group was turned away from the Grand Canyon by a park ranger, because they didn't have enough water. But these were truly beautiful hikes: