What is the highest point (above sea level) on Great Bear Island?

[Glflegolas]

On 3/9/2021 at 10:56 PM, Jolan said:

I suspect from the picture that Blackrock will ultimately be near to the highest point.  If you look at the surrounding summit and the far distant ridge there are no trees.  You'd expect no trees near the prison, but almost every mountain so far has trees on it.  So if  it follows real world examples like Haida Gwaii the alpine zone would start betwen 800 - 900 meters.

 

Yeah, neither Timberwolf Mountain nor Peak Cave can be that high, because there are large trees on both summits. So 500-600m seems like a very reasonable altitude, if we assume that Great Bear is off the BC coast.

For some reference: the highest point in Nova Scotia where I live is 512 m, and any trees that do grow at that height are pretty scrawny and scraggly, due to high wind exposure; you can get near-alpine like conditions on exposed coastal headlands too, where trees are so battered by wind and salt spray that they struggle to grow.

The highest place I've seen trees grow (personally) is around 1,100m, in the mountains of the Gaspe, and the trees were very short, growing to a maximum height of about a meter.

However, I still agree @Mroz4k that the highest point on Great Bear Island will eventually be a mountain in the shape of a bear, called Great Bear, and that it'll be likely far higher than any mountain that's currently accessible in the game. We have a peak called Wolf's Jaw Overlook, so why not?

[Glflegolas]

LOL, I found an altitude higher than Peak Cave in Hushed River Valley. It's the southern portal of the exporable cave in Mountain Town (a short distance south of Spruce Falls Bridge). The altitude here is 612 m.

[Stinky socks]

I don't know, shouldn't there be some numbers like into 6,000 at least? I mean if I'm in mystery lake and look around, some peaks look like they reach into stratosphere!

[Glflegolas]

I've done a few measurements of Ash Canyon.

• Shattered Cove: 15m
• Spot near the mine descent rope: 360m
• Angler's Den: 41m
• Foreman's Retreat: 235

The altitudes here are nowhere close to those of Mountain Town or Hushed River Valley.

[UpUpAway95]

Wikipedia lists the treeline for the Canadian Rockies at about 2,400 m.  Calgary (near where I live is at 1,035 m above sea level and it is well below the treeline visible on the mountains west of the City.  To the best of my memory (I haven't been to the West Coast in several years now), the treeline on the BC Coast is not significantly different than the treeline on the interior ranges, although I would expect exposure to the wind to affect this... However, the BC Coast is, currently, warmer generally than the interior; but this is not the weather as portrayed in TLD... and cold does affect the treeline.  Also, unlike the East Coast, the BC Coastal Mountain range rises rather abruptly out of the ocean; whereas the mountains in Quebec and east are "older" and much more eroded.

Overall, I think the altitude in TLD is not necessarily accurately represented, since it would take far more time for a person to scale a significant peak (like TWM) IRL than it does in the game.

ETA:  I also thought I read something that Raph said about Great Bear Island being based on Vancouver Island and other islands along the BC Coast.  The highest peak on Vancouver Island is 2,195 m and the highest peak in the Queen Charlotte Island is Mount Moresby (Haida Guaii) at 1, 164 m... both of which are below Wikipedia's stated treeline of 2,400 m (but, of course, the steepness and rockiness of the peak itself would affect the perceived treeline of these peaks).

Edited March 20, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[peteloud]

11 hours ago, Glflegolas said:

I've done a few measurements of Ash Canyon. . . .

The altitudes here are nowhere close to those of Mountain Town or Hushed River Valley.

That is surprising and disappointing. As the entrance cave that starts the trip to Ash Canyon is halfway up TWM and some of the place in AC seem high I thought that AC places would have been much higher than that.

Thanks for checking those heights.

[Glflegolas]

I took these measurements relative to the connection via Echo Ravine, you might get different results if you took them from the connection via Deer Clearing. Don't forget, however, you're fairly high up in Ash Canyon when you enter via Deer Clearing, so the summits aren't as high as you might think.

Unfortunately, there's a minor issue with any altitudes I took relative to Coastal Highway... you go down so much from the mine entrance to Pleasant Valley that the farmstead would end up being 3 meters below sea level, which doesn't entirely make sense. I may have to take all altitudes relative to Bleak Inlet and travel via Winding River in order to get values that make sense IRL.

[XAlaskan_420X]

I am also interested to know what the highest point is. I do believe that Ash Canyon has the highest visible altitude high/low ratio I have ever seen (I mean like looking down at the lowest point in the canyon from your highest accessible places in the region) - this is not counting any of the 2d mountains in the distance that are inaccessible in any of the regions, just what is accessible land in the game. If we were to factor in what is inaccessible... well now I am really curious as to what mountain that would be that would have the highest point and what region it could be seen from. I do realize that just because Ash Canyon seems to have the highest altitude ratio doesn't mean that it has the highest point, because for example if MT or HRV's lowest point starts close enough to AC's highest point then MT or HRV's highest point would be higher than AC's highest point. Anyways, while thinking about what the highest point in The Long Dark would be while exploring Ash Canyon, it brought something else into question and that is, I have never noticed altitude altering the temperature - I would like this as a thing. What do you think? 

Shoot, that would deserve it's own post. As that would basically overhaul the temperature system in the whole game. The game would be completely rebalanced as far as temperature-wise.

Edited April 1, 2021 by XAlaskan_420X
P.S on another note

[Jolan]

On 4/1/2021 at 5:38 PM, XAlaskan_420X said:

I have never noticed altitude altering the temperature - I would like this as a thing. What do you think? 

When Timberwolf Mountain was first introduced I remember them telling us that TM was colder than PV because it was higher altitude.  So it does exist in places.

[Jolan]

On 3/20/2021 at 6:07 PM, UpUpAway95 said:

ETA:  I also thought I read something that Raph said about Great Bear Island being based on Vancouver Island and other islands along the BC Coast.  The highest peak on Vancouver Island is 2,195 m and the highest peak in the Queen Charlotte Island is Mount Moresby (Haida Guaii) at 1, 164 m... both of which are below Wikipedia's stated treeline of 2,400 m (but, of course, the steepness and rockiness of the peak itself would affect the perceived treeline of these peaks).

Haida Gwaii that I use in the example is a sparsely populated archipelago off of BC coast, check it out its cool.  There's forests, alpine areas, its relatively isolated, primarily accessed by plane and ferry.  Here's my favorite quote "Precipitation is typically extremely frequent (especially from autumn to mid-winter), occurring on around two-thirds of all days even in relatively shielded areas, and direct sunlight is scarce, averaging around 3 to 4 hours per day." And the alpine zones start around 2400 feet or 800 m because of the oceanic alpine effect.