What a wonderful way to approach this!
I agree, the best way to deal with even the most patronizing unsolicited trail advice --- often from folks in a questionable position to proffer such --- is to just see (but not show) the humor in the situation and avoid any sort of competition or demonstration of your knowledge or anything like that.

I too find that if I end up in conversation in such a situation, most often the person is great, just enthusiastic and wanting to share, or seeing a hiking style mismatch with mine that causes them to have (what to me are unwarranted) concerns.