Eiger Nordwand - new course location

  • Thread starter MasterGT
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MasterGT

MasterGT

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Eiger Nordwand : Eiger Northwall

The Eiger Nordwand course, one of GT:HD's new locations, is situated a bit north and west of the base of the Eiger Mountain, in Switzerland. The Eiger has a sheer rock face which is 2300m high. Once you break above the treeline, above Wegen, you arrive at a group of four buildings called Kleine Scheidegg (2061m) which you see at the start/finish line. This rail junction for local villages, such as Grindelwald to the east, and to go to the Jungfraujoch peak, is quite busy during the summer days. It was the location for Clint Eastwood's movie "The Eiger Sanction".

This image shows the start/finish area, looking towards the Eiger Mountain.

KleineSchSommer.jpg


In the image below, the area where the course is located is within the yellow circle and the game's map is beside it. (The free Google Earth is not very clear at these resolutions, so the exact position is pretty difficult to determine.) You can see the Eiger's north face as the dark shadowed area, on the right.

EigerNordwand.jpg


The next composition shows where I think the new course is situated. The scale may be off and the rotation may not be exact, but more information is needed to make it more accurate.

GE-Kleine_Scheidegg.jpg


Here is a video of a full lap around this course: Eiger Nordwand Lap

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
I'm actually quite interested in Eiger Nordwand. The setting seems VERY scenic. Maybe more scenic than the El Capitain course and the Cathedral Rocks rally course. Only one lane of road to work with. So it can be quite tough to navigate. Eiger Nordwand should make for a challenging tarmac rally experience. It is one of those courses that will truly reward careful and precise driving and punish tomfoolery and monkeyshines. I do hope that this course will provide quite a thrill for GT gamers. How can you not love the view around this course?

I still sort of imagine what it would be like if this was a rally stage and not a rallycross loop. This course would be freaking insane then. It should be less intimidating as Grand Canyon. But we'll see when we actually do get to race this bad boy.
 
-> I'd like to see Eiger and Grindelwald interlinked in GT5 to make it like a one way (point A to Point B) type race course, just like Initial D's Akagi's mountain pass on Gunma Japan. (:

-> I still miss the tricky course of Grindelwald still. (:
 
Mekanaizer
(off-topic) The second course on Premium is in London!
any info about it?
Click to expand...
The London course was actually rumoured to be coming with GT4, just before it was released.
That didn't happen, obviously.

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
The coolest thing about Eiger Nordwand is that I actually visited the location (along with Grindelwald) just last year! :D I was taking the train up to the Jungfraujoch and stopped at this little outpost to switch trains. The fact that they actually selected this location, which I (of all people) so recently visited, as a new track in a new GT game, is actually pretty amazing. They did take a few liberties with the trees (the station is right above the tree line) around the track, and the road is very rough and certainly not paved. Here's a few pictures from my trip, you can see the entire gallery here, along with the high resolution originals.

This is the start/finish line:
normal_IMG_1630.JPG


This screenshot makes a good comparison, and the railroad crossing is accurate. My picture above was taken about a hundred feet to the right of where the spectators are standing here. If you follow closely, you'll see where the tracks "end" amongst some trees there. In reality, that is actually where the "open tunnel" you see in my picture begins, and at the top of that open tunnel is where the real tunnel plunges into the core of the mountain. Why they would leave out this rather obvious and simple landmark is a little puzzling to me. Fortunately, Polyphony had a little bit better weather when they visited for their photos. :lol:
normal_p33a.jpg


And finally, a picture of the Grindelwald sign for old time's sake. I did visit the village in search of the infamous track, but I could not find any remnants of it. It is a fairly good size town, however, so it could still be out there.
normal_IMG_1839.JPG


Ugh...going through all these pictures makes me want to go back to Switzerland so bad! 👍
 
Nice inf oguys. Thanks for the pics etc MasterGT.

NB: Is it just me... or am i the only one that gets half a chubby looking at the track selection screens from months ago out of GT:HD? Dayummm i love the actual full use of HD resolutions in menu's and selections. Its about time. And sweet as hell detail on the tracks. that kind of tech looks gets me goin' ;) :P
 
Great job, MasterGT. 👍

Things seem to be a bit more precise with GoogleEarth.
The black line is the railroad, the white line is a road.

 
VV
Great job, MasterGT. 👍

Things seem to be a bit more precise with GoogleEarth.
The black line is the railroad, the white line is a road.

Click to expand...

It took a bit of detective work, since the original clue I went by was the name of the building with "Bellevue" on it. Do you know how many Bellevue hotels there are in Switzerland? :ouch:

Once I found the top picture and the name of the junction, I knew I had it.

VV: your outline and mine are pretty close. It looks now as if mine is just a bit too big, but the position is pretty good.

What is pretty cool, though, was finding out that Google Earth can spin the view and we get to see a 3D rendition of the area! I tried to make a movie of it, but it was too blurry.

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
Determining the exact location of the tract is a bit of a moot point, since Switzerland has banned motor racing since mid-1955.

Therefore, it's a fantasy track.
 
Quick! Someone get on the phone and tell Kaz he can't use Eiger Nordwand in GT:HD.
Switzerland banned car racing.

You made my day... :sly:

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
In response to Jordan's post, I did see an "open tunnel" in one of the gameplay videos of the game from a large gaming site (don't want to get in trouble mentioning the name). I believe they have modeled the tunnel (assuming there is only one), but perhaps it's just not visible from that angle.
 
Pupik
Determining the exact location of the tract is a bit of a moot point, since Switzerland has banned motor racing since mid-1955.

Therefore, it's a fantasy track.
Click to expand...
It's not a road thats actually used as a race track sure, but neither is the New York, Seol or Citta Di Aria routes from GT4. They are all real roads, if you go to that location in real life you will able to drive the same routes as thoes tracks, just because cars don't race on thoes roads in real life doesn't mean the route is a fantasy route. Now Trial mountain, Grand Valley and Deep forest aer all fantasy tracks not being based on any real route or track.
 
Pupik
Determining the exact location of the tract is a bit of a moot point, since Switzerland has banned motor racing since mid-1955.

Therefore, it's a fantasy track.
Click to expand...
I believe it will be classified as a Original course (or maybe a city course like Assisi or Capri), and a be special conditions course.

And it doesnt matter that Switzerland has banned racing since the Lemans 1955 tragedy, as long as PD dont race in actual switzerland. Swiss Alps has been in GT since GT3 (and theres Grindelwald in GT2).

In fact, I think its great what PD is doing for Swiss race fans. The online GT picture had Switzerland on it three times for their three languages.
 
JTSnooks
In response to Jordan's post, I did see an "open tunnel" in one of the gameplay videos of the game from a large gaming site (don't want to get in trouble mentioning the name). I believe they have modeled the tunnel (assuming there is only one), but perhaps it's just not visible from that angle.
Click to expand...
You can see the GT:HD "tunnel" in the one video of red Miata on this course.
As you get near the end of the video, it is on the opposite side of the valley.

Here is another view.

tunneloa5.jpg


Cheers,

MasterGT
 
MasterGT
Quick! Someone get on the phone and tell Kaz he can't use Eiger Nordwand in GT:HD.
Switzerland banned car racing.

You made my day... :sly:

Cheers,

MasterGT
Click to expand...

lol yea, i heard about that...only up to 125 cc are allowed to race....

anyway, i love this new track. looks good. i have been in swiss for a few times, but never visited eigener northwend.
 
Actually Switzerland allowed hill climbs up through the late 1960s, and this track could be considered similar to a hill climb.
 
In real life this location is not accessible by car. The only way to get to that hotel in the pictures is by cog train. My friend has stayed in that exact hotel.
 
London with traffic baby, yeah! Let's turn GT into NFS!!!!!!!!!!

How 'bout no.
 

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