20 INCH MUD TIRES

JUNEAU, ALASKA: The Mount Roberts trail looks innocent. It starts as Sixth Street - a sidewalk that morphs from concrete to steps and dirt trail into the woods. A sign at the last step mentions avalanches and such bu includes enough standard jargon to calm the nervous.. Proceed at your own risk. Trail may have narrow paths. Watch for loose stones. It wouldn’t worry anyone.
At the top signs shout - caution, avalanche, mud slides. What’s the trail really like? Well, the sign at the Sixth Streets needs a bit of revision.
During dinner in Juneau some of us talked about whether we should spend $50 to ride the cable car. Heidi and Leo proudly announced that they hiked the mountain and rode the cable car down. (The ride down is free.) It’s a lovely walk they said so we took water, cameras and jackets and went in search of Sixth Street.
About 30 minutes into the trail we found a sign showing the way back to Sixth Street as a loop to the left and the way to the cable car as a minor 2 mile jaunt forward. The weather was good, the wind pleasant and we had plenty of time.
Maybe a half mile further we found a shelter built by Juneau’s Senior Girl Scouts. There was a little fence and a few steps up to a lovely covered bench. The back of the bench was a chunk of wood 4 inches thick, 12 inches wide and 10 feet long. It must have taken every Senior Girl Scout in Juneau to get that plank up there, not to mention all the other planks they used.
It would be impossible to drive anything up there over the jutting roots, through the gooey mud and around hairpin switch backs. We sat to appreciate their work and along came a young couple.
We talked a bit. The guy asked how far we’d come since the 2 mile marker and I said they’d confused us with someone who had been there before. Rick guessed a mile; I guessed half a mile. I took the couple’s photo with the spectacular backdrop of Juneau and mountains and he said it was such an easy trail it didn’t matter. Wonder how he feels about that now.
We went on for about half an hour more and found an older couple sitting on a log discussing the poor choice they’d made deciding to climb. Like fools, we joked. I asked if there was anyone we could call for them should they not make it. No, they laughed, they had a cell phone and they’d be fine. How far could it be? They’d hiked a lot in Tennessee when they were young.
Half an hour uphill from them, I wished we had joked less and taken their number. If they were in trouble and tired when they reached that log, they were going to be in serious trouble doing the rest of the trail. How could we help? We had no idea which way would be easier. Maybe they already gave up and went down. We’ll never know.
There was a bit of ice on the trail and snow off to the side. Wasn’t that exciting? We learned that having 20 inches of the stuff on the trail was more exciting. I put my foot in one spot and it went down until my knee was buried and my foot wedged like an anchor. Rick came to the rescue and we continued to climb.
Now, it wasn’t like the summit on Mt. Everest and Rick Shear or Jay Hardman would have loped up grinning and soaking in the sight of distant snow-capped mountains and the view of the harbor when there was a hole between trees but this wasn’t a country stroll either.
I wasn’t confident about being on the trail. Foot prints didn’t show up much. Most of the snow was hard and covered with pine needles. In one part I crawled straight up while my blister, a souvenir of Skagway, scolded me as did my constantly-twisting knees and ankles. Could we have taken a wrong trail? Rick said that we fine as long as we were going up and we hadn’t passed any skeletons.
There was only one sign after that 2 mile marker. Placed nearly at the top, it said no shooting from May to September – it was located very near a gooey pile of bear scat.
An hour after we passed the couple on the log (His parting words were, “Tell ‘em to look for a big, old guy in a yellow shirt.) we saw the roof of the restaurant at the top of the hill. We tried to tell someone that this older couple might be in trouble on the trail but the people we told just laughed.
At the cable car station and an eagle swooped overhead and then soared upwards. I’m glad that we didn’t know about avalanches or mud slides until we reached the top and I do hope the other couple made it up.

SUCH a fun but time consuming cake to make, but glad I took the effort to give it all I had.

It is 14 inches front to back, 5 inches high and 8 inches wide...so BIG!

Flavor is dark choc mud wit ferrero rocher ganache hazelnut filling...it took all my strength to not lick my fingers ;)

Color was a watermelon to start with, then airbrushed red and finished in a glaze layer...lots of layers!

Decals by the talented Nancy at Cardique cake artistry...saved me about 5 hours in hand painting I'd say!

Logo on board (20 inch square board mind you) was hand painted and personalized to the boys name and age, in matching fonts tot the original logo.

ALL EDIBLE