So going over this I see that the Old Dwarf Road to Grenzstadt is hard to follow?
Really, a major trade road for trade into the Empire, going from Black Fire Pass to Averheim and beyond, that's hard to follow?
Doesn't make sense to me. I mention as well because this demo is cross-referenced in the Black Fire Pass material.
Naw, doesn't make sense. Maybe a lot of tributary roads, but the amount of trade on such a road would be immense. I'd say that there could be side-roads, slicks, high-roads and low roads through wash out areas. Still...
(sorry for my instant response, but I'm trapped somewhere terrible and green)
Maybe it just means that the road itself isnt repaired to dwarven standards so has potholes etc.
I doubt anyone in the empire is currently organised enough to have a road works department
The adventure makes Observation checks be used to follow it. A major trade route. That's my
Does seem like a weird choice of skill roll and the consequences for failure. "Following the Old Dwarf Road is not easy and a couple of times you find yourselves on the wrong track." Being unmarked and hard to follow is not what I expect from a major trade route. The Enemy Within talks about how trade with the Dwarves, Border Princes and Tilea have made Averheim relatively wealthy, so it's surprising that the road would be not just in disrepair, but hard to even see. You might change the roll on the first leg from Observation to something like Athletics or Resilience, and adjust the flavor-text to represent bad weather or poor road conditions instead of actually getting lost on a major highway.
What's really weird to me, though, is that the part of the journey on the road in part one is Observation vs 2 Purple, but then when they go overland hiking in part two it's Nature Lore vs 1 Purple. Since both use Intelligence, that's basically saying that going cross-country is actually easier than following the road. I'd be strongly inclined to swap the difficulties around, so the lower difficulty roll is used for the highway travel.