Speculation: Where Does The Pass In Sundered Pass Lead To?

[ElSuperGecko]

First up, apologies if his has already been discussed or answered elsewhere.

I was trekking through the latest region again last night, and followed the road from Transfer Pass up to the climb and found myself staring at the collapsed tunnel again.  So, we see the other side of the collapsed tunnel in Sundered Pass, leading to the switchback road up into the mountains - passing the first two refuge huts, the abandoned village where the the road eventually splits, leading to the broken bridge and Weather Station on one side, then up to the Final Refuge and rockslide/avalanche on the other.

So I was just wondering if (a) this has been answered somewhere, or if not (b) where people think this blocked road may lead?

My first thought was it may be a route back out of the Far Territory, maybe connecting back to Keeper's Pass (there's a few blocked roads there), but this seems pretty far away.

[UTC-10]

The road from the collapsed tunnel up to the blocked pass and even the road leading to the weather station do not make much sense from a transportation point of view.  The road, especially on the way from the tunnel area up to Refuge B, is much too narrow for two-way vehicular traffic, much less heavy trucks or vans and with a sheer drop on one side totally lacking in safety features like guard rails or even markers showing where to drive on and not off the edge.  The bridges were log bridges, not unreasonable for the area, but would not be expected to carry any significant amount of traffic and require a fairly substantial amount of regular maintenance if they did.  

That said, the road system makes for a nice adventuring environment given we cannot drive anything. 

I also have begun to think that if the pass was blocked by snowfall that was some snowfall as the Refuge structures and buildings in Avalanche Village should have been buried under many meters of snow.  But that would potentially ruin the adventuring environment.  If it was an avalanche that blocked the pass where did the avalanche come from?  

I would expect to see some small village and/or dispersed residences and farming- or fishing-related activities on the far side of the pass.  The main access would be via a coastal  highway with the road in Sundered Pass being a secondary, more scenic, route (a shortcut distance-wise but [not] necessarily time-wise).  

If Hinterland decided to do another DLC one thing they could include would be an adventuring area on the far side of the pass, of course still blocked by snow except now passable via a snow trail and with ice tunnels or a cave system to the other side. 

What would we find on the other side?   🏪 or 🚠

Edited July 31 by UTC-10
Grammar, I can do better.

[The Feng Hunter]

I have wondered this quite a bit, honestly. 

The proper name of the road is “Route One” — we know this for a number of reasons:

1. when you map at the base of the frozen waterfall closest to “Last Lonely House,” the marker is titled “Route One Waterfall”; 

2. There is too much infrastructure leading to nowhere. Based on the presence of Avalanche Huts and the directionality of the road leading to the Weather Station, I think it’s a good assumption to say once you cross the ridge whence the impassable snow pile, you will probably plateau, as this is “the rocky spine” of Great Bear;

3. There are no towns, gas stations, or associated infrastructure for the people who worked at the airfield. Goodness knows they didn’t all live in the abandoned settlement.  And;

4. A note you can find in one of the 3 Avalanche Shelters notes there had been a “blasting operation” that failed. My money’s on a snowfield blasting operation carried out by the government to mitigate a future avalanche. When that failed, the ensuing snow from the following season likely buried the settlement.

That’s a HUGE risk and ask to undertake for a middle-of-nowhere town, so whatever is up there … it’s probably important, or just expensive.

Maybe government research (seems too obvious) …

What if it was a ski village? After all, the pictures in Vale Depot prior to the first tale featured a Ski Lift and some skiers.

[ElSuperGecko]

8 hours ago, The Feng Hunter said:

3. There are no towns, gas stations, or associated infrastructure for the people who worked at the airfield. Goodness knows they didn’t all live in the abandoned settlement. 

This is very true.  As the main route to the Far Territory is via the island's rail system (which connects all the way from Coastal Highway through Mystery Lake, Forlorn Muskeg and Broken Railroad to the Far Range Branch Line), I wonder if this is the connecting "road" route?  I mentioned Keeper's Pass earlier, but maybe it connects back to Mountain Town?  There's a couple of blocked off routes road routes there, and Milton has at the very least the gas station, store and bank for infrastructure.

The background of Milton from the wiki certainly suggests that it was built due to industrial needs (although to be fair, the Langston Mine isn't the only one in the surrounding regions).

"Milton was founded in 1911 to support the initially booming coal industry in the surrounding mountains. The town was originally built along a supply route from the coast to the interior of Great Bear Island, with the road replaced by a paved highway in 1960. The location of the town, halfway between Port Mary and the mountains in the interior of Great Bear, made it a convenient stopping-off point for fuel and supplies for workers in the mining, logging, and milling industries..."

There are roads leading into both Forsaken Airfield and Zone of Contamination from Transfer Pass, but the only road into Transfer Pass appears to be the one via Sundered Pass.  That would be a fun commute!

 

[AdamvR]

I have been to such roads in mountains, and the rule was that before 1pm one of the directions was allowed, after 1pm the other. So there was never meant to be any  traffic blocking your way.

for the tunnel collapse at the ‘forest end’ of the map i assumed it was leading to transfer pass, but as it was collapsed we had to climb up and reach the valley through the mountain route on feet. (This is where i entered the area from, so it seemed straightforward to me)

the top end, with the timberwolves, bear, refuge C and barely any vegetation i’d assume was leading to the valley behind the  ridge. Which was collapsed before, and according to one note they did not manage to reopen it.

back to the irl roads i mentioned, even with split traffic they were accessible only in the summer months, which had to be preceded by loads of work making then ridable again after the winter challenges. This seems totally fitting to me for Sundered Pass as well.