Sword Mountains

 DON'T FORGET THE Wilderness (Travel)!

General Description

 * Ground is uneven under your feet. This is treacherous going. Trees are actively starting to lose their leaves.
 * Scent: The dominant earthy smells of fall are largely the product of plants hunkering down for the winter. Fallen leaves begin to decay and their sugars and organic compounds in the leaf break down, creating the classic musky-sweet smell of a leaf pile.

To Wave Echo Cave (From Phandalin)

 * 15 Miles - 5 Hours at Normal Speed
 * This is off road: you follow south, following the old wooden fence south from the Alderleaf farm into crops of wood that disperse into gradual foothills.
 * In the direction of the mountain range that dwarfs the land around it. Towering grey mountains that rise above the uneven terrain to snow capped peaks. The Sword Mountains.
 * These soft hills give way to steeper crags, the peaks of the mountains seemingly no closer despite the hours you trek towards them.
 * Gundren leads you through narrow passes between old rocks, over wet pools and into passes that seem so low and crouched and shadowed from any sunlight your imagination spirals at the wild animals that must lurk in the corners, behind the large boulders or in the scattered pine trees above.
 * The trek becomes steeper, and you find your knees straining as you go, careful to place your foot on solid ground lest you break your ankle in a sudden gorge.
 * The smell of moss and lichen is sweet and musty in the air, and occassionally the sharper scented of you make out the musk of wet hair or fur or dung.
 * Gundren is always looking out over his shoulder. Sildar takes the back.
 * Eventually, after five hours -- with Phandalin far enough behind you that you can barely make out the tell-tail trail of smoke that rises from the town's inns, deep in the hidden vales of the Sword Mountains, you clamber up a narrow edge and find yourself at the lip of a narrow tunnel. Seemingly hidden by the jagged edge of a protruding rock, you would never have found it on your own.





