Monday I was joined by long-time hiking companion Janice for another high elevation Smokies hike. Our route was a two car shuttle kind of route with a start at the nearly 6,000' elevation Fork Ridge trailhead and exit via Deep Creek trail at the 4,740' elevation trailhead on Newfound Gap road (NC side). The route was "only" about 9 miles long and, unless one looked closely at a topographic map, it might seem this was to be an easy walk-in-the-park kind of hike in the cool, high elevations of the Smokies.