The maps were spread over the dining table and we gathered around, weighing the relative merits of each red, squiggly trail line.

Our destination the next day was a lodge on top of the third-highest peak in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We'd drive east into the park from Gatlinburg, Tenn., then park the car. The rest of the way we'd go by foot.

LeConte Lodge at the top of Mount LeConte - 6,539 feet above sea level - can be reached only by five hiking trails. Each is an uphill trek, varying in length from 5½ to 8 miles. And as the brochure says, "none can be considered a stroll."

The highest inn in the eastern United States and the only lodge in the national park, LeConte Lodge is a modest affair of rough wood cabins. There's also a dining hall, an office/community room with rocking chairs and board games, and spectacular sunsets over 3-million-year-old mountains.

For the journey, as well as the destination, LeConte is one of the most hiked mountains in the most visited national park in the nation.

My husband, Chris, and I already had taken one hike to LeConte Lodge with our friends Matt and Brenda Bordelon, so we were familiar with the steep, beautiful terrain - alpine wildflower meadows, spruce and fir groves and panoramic vistas stretching on a clear day all the way to Knoxville, Tenn.

On that first trip, in April 2005, we had taken the Trillium Gap Trail, a 6.5-mile, packed-earth path that passes behind the picturesque Grotto waterfall as it curls approximately 3,300 feet up the northern slope of the mountain.

Before heading up that time, we'd stopped for supplies at the Happy Hiker store in Gatlinburg.