When he climbed back into the SUV, he handed Charlie her coffee first.
“You didn't have to do that,” she said, but she was smiling.
“I know,” Ben said. And he did know. He just wanted to anyway.
The Eisenhower Tunnel sat like a concrete bunker carved into the mountain, swallowing westbound traffic in steady pulses. Charlie pulled into a designated overlook area just east of the tunnel entrance, and they climbed out into air that smelled of trees and diesel exhaust.
“Well,” Viv said, hands on her hips as she surveyed the scene. “This is... brutalist.”
She wasn't wrong. The tunnel portal dominated the view—massive, utilitarian, designed for function over form. Above it, Interstate 70 cut a wide swath through the landscape, guardrails and concrete barriers marching up the slope. It was impressive from an engineering standpoint. From a cinematic one? Not so much.
“The avalanche paths are up there,” Ben said, pointing to the steep slopes above the highway. “Loop Road, Batch Plant, Whistler. CDOT's got eight Gazex systems on Loop Road alone.”
Maddie was taking notes, but even she looked dubious. “It's very... visible. All the infrastructure, I mean.”
“That's the problem,” Viv said, rubbing her temples. She asked Maddie to pull up a conceptual rendering showing Lord Felldark's Mountain Keep perched on an isolated peak, surrounded by nothing but snow and stone.
Rowan unwrapped his sandwich as he leaned against the SUV. “This doesn't read as remote. It reads as 'busy highway with avalanche danger.'“
“Could we shoot it from a different angle? Make the tunnel disappear?” Maddie asked.
“Maybe,” Viv said, but she didn't sound convinced. “Ben, do you know any secret spots?”
Ben had been quiet, chewing thoughtfully on his roast beef sandwich while he studied the terrain. Now he gestured up the slope with his free hand.
“If you hiked up about half a mile,” he said, “got above the infrastructure—say, near the Loop Road path—you could frame the shot to avoid the highway entirely. Get nothing but mountain and sky. The avalanche chute would still be dramatic, you'd just need permission to position your cameras up there.”
“That could work,” Viv said. “If we're shooting from above, we wouldn't see any of the road, but I’m still not sure about the angle.” She rubbed her temples again.
“Do you want to see it from there?” Ben asked.
Viv shook her head. “No. Honestly, I think the altitude is getting to me. I’ve been too long at sea level.”
“Hang on,” Charlie said. She jogged back to the SUV and opened the back. She returned a minute later with three canisters.
“O2,” she said as she passed them out to Viv, Rowan, and Maddie. “You just flip the top up, point the nozzle at your mouth, and press down on the top.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten these existed,” Viv said as she studied the canister and flipped the top open. She closed her eyes and took a couple of breaths. “That’s better.”
Viv studied the slope, then looked back at the photo. She sighed. “It's not... right.” She turned to Ben. “What about Loveland Pass? The Seven Sisters, right?”
“Different animal entirely,” Ben said. “More exposed. More dangerous. But also more isolated. No guardrails, no tunnel,nothing that screams 'modern highway.' Just switchbacks cutting through avalanche terrain.”
Viv's eyes lit up. “That's what I want. That's Felldark's Mountain.”
Charlie had been eating her sandwich quietly, Flo lying at her feet with her head on her paws. Now she looked at Ben. “How much more dangerous are we talking?”
“The Seven Sisters are seven separate avalanche paths that all converge on the same stretch of road,” Ben said. “The pass sits at almost twelve thousand feet. No guardrails on a lot of it. In winter, avalanches have pushed cars right off the road. The Gazex systems up there fail pretty regularly—self-destruct, freeze up, you name it.”
“So it's the real deal,” Viv said.
“It's the real deal,” Ben confirmed.
Viv looked at Rowan, who shrugged. “If that's where you want to film, that's where we'll film. I trust you.”
“Then let's not waste any more time here,” Viv said, already wrapping up the rest of her sandwich. “How far is Loveland Pass?”
“Twenty minutes,” Ben said. “Maybe less.”
