The waterfall plummets 1000 feet...

[AeroDm]

As a kid, my family focused on travel despite being of very moderate means. The rest of my gaming group's families did not have the same focus. I have an early memory of describing a thousand foot cliff shortly after visiting the Grand Canyon (and it's mile long drops)and my players being critical--finding that distance to be improbable.

I forgot the memory until recently going to Yosemite National Park and climbing to the top of the 2400 foot Yosemite Waterfall and swimming in the pools at its peak. I realized that if I were to describe their heroes as swimming in a pool of water 2400 feet above the valley floor and mere feet from a waterfall, they'd think I was being unnecessarily sensational, but only because they've never seen the real thing.

So what have you seen in the real world that is too cool for the D&D world?

My short list is probably...
-- Grand Canyon
-- Yosemite waterfall
-- Schloss Neuschwanstein
-- Angkor Wat

 

[Rechan]

I generally like "larger than life" things that don't even have a comparison in the real world (A hundred mile long trench that's two miles deep). But I can see how that can put tension on the old suspension of disbelief. TO add to the list:

Niagra Falls. It's a waterfall all over the place - wide and shaped interesting.

I've never been there but:

The Amazon River. I nominate this one because of its width: The width of the Amazon varies between 1.6 and 10 kilometres (1.0 and 6.2 mi) at low stage, but expands during the wet season to 48 kilometres (30 mi) or more.

 

[The Shaman]

The Amazon River. I nominate this one because of its width: The width of the Amazon varies between 1.6 and 10 kilometres (1.0 and 6.2 mi) at low stage, but expands during the wet season to 48 kilometres (30 mi) or more.

That's 171 Swim checks, by the way.

 

[IronWolf]

So what have you seen in the real world that is too cool for the D&D world?

-- Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon is definitely on my list. I've done a fair amount of overnight backpacking in the canyon in many places reached by "routes" not the mainstream trails. I've seen lots of awesome places in the Grand Canyon that one could use for terrain description in game that some might find hard to believe.

I've also done some fun hikes in the Rocky Mountains that were a little off the beaten path. Heck, even some of the mainstream stuff is pretty awesome in the Rockies as well.

And several things off the beaten trails in southern AZ as well. Largely found through a cross of hiking or 4x4'ing.

For those looking for real examples of nature that can easily be dropped into fantasy settings, check out the National Geographic Photo of the Day. Frequently some scene will pop up there that you could base a campaign off of!

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Borthwick Castle, in Scotland. Built with solid 14' walls at the base. Has the cosmetic scars of concentrated cannon fire to prove it.

There's a ton of improbable things in Yosemite. The Yosemite Falls, for one. Then there's Half Dome. There's the giant sequoia groves.

There's the fact that the Sahara wasn't always a desert, and that there are old Stone Age sites to be found there.

I witnessed the rebuilding of the Frauenkirche in Dresden. Seeing a gorgeous building like that rebuilt today reminded me that yes, we are fully capable of building ornate today.

 

[RangerWickett]

Speaking of the Amazon, encontro das aguas is the point by Manaus where two rivers connect and flow parallel for a few miles. Because the water from one river is faster and warmer than the other, you can actually see the difference. If you had two boats racing, the one on the south side would have the distinct advantage.

For more fun, try it in Google Maps:

Zoom out just a tad.

 

[RainOfSteel]

I've been to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon at the Skywalk. The cliff face there is 4000 feet of absolute vertical drop.

Strangely, it doesn't really appear that deep when you're looking straight down through the glass.

It was funny, though. The Skywalk glass starts about 6-10 feet before the cliff. You can see the ground directly below. I put on the glass-protecting shoe covers and, not being particularly afraid of heights, I tried to walk directly onto the glass. As I was about to put a foot down onto the clearly visible glass, I froze solid. I couldn't put my foot down. Some hind-brain instinct was screaming at me that there was nothing there and to stop, even though the ground was only a few feet below.

Fortunately, the sides of the Skywalk have solid edges: the steel support beams. I walked on those for a few minutes until I could work myself up to walking on the glass.

On either side of the Skywalk, you could walk right up to the cliff face and look over the edge. I did it myself, although I got down on my knees first and sort of crept forward until my shoulders were at the edge so I could aim the camera around. It just seemed like a bad idea to stand directly at the edge of such a tall cliff.

EDIT--------

I remember reading a book about the Amazon river in 1984 for high school geography. A couple took a small house boat down the Amazon. About half-way down, they tied up next to some bushes by a village for the night. The villagers came out and, even though there was no common language, they "shooed" the couple away from the bushes and made them anchor in the middle of the village's little lagoon. The couple humored the villagers and then went to bed. When they awoke, they found the bushes had been the tops of trees and they were now at the level of the trunks. The villager's houses were far above on tall stilts. The tide had gone out and the water had dropped over twenty feet. They were fifteen hundred miles inland and the ocean tide was affecting the river by twenty feet. :O

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I've always thought the Boundary Waters/Quetico Park wilderness was something that would be unbelievable, if not just too difficult to describe believably.

Packed so full of lakes and islands, so close together, you could travel the entire area by crossing one lake, pick up your boat and walk it just few dozen steps to the next lake. Again and again across millions of acres of rock and forest in nearly every direction.

Drawing this out on a map might cause the hired cartographer to quit in protest. Or turn it into a never-finishable project! The only reason we have maps of the BWCA/Quetico region is aerial photos we can trace.

[Edit] I might also add the mobile floating villages of the Uros on Lake Titicaca, made from reeds found in the lake.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The Old Sow (largest whirlpool in the Western Hemisphere, and a known ship eater).

From the OldSowWhirlpool.com :

Just How Big Is Old Sow?

'How does one measure a whirlpool? The broad area of disorderly water is vast, running from near Clam Cove, Deer Island, to south of the international bridge between Campobello Island, NB, and Lubec, ME, a distance of around 7 miles / 11 kilometres, and to the northeast, between Deer Island and Indian Island (just to the south of Deer Island); however, Old Sow itself — the largest vortex and its compatriots — is confined to an area that is much smaller.

In 1997 the Old Sow Whirlpool Survivor’s Association President took an aerial photograph of the whirlpool. Using the diameter of the navigation beacon tower at the southern end of Deer Island as a reference, he extrapolated that the smaller, but most active of the two large vortexes that were present at that time was approximately 76 metres / 250 feet in diameter!'

The Bay of Fundy - a 55.8 tide in six hours and thirteen minutes at the flood near Burntcoat Head.

The Auld Grump

 

[Retreater]

Mammoth Cave. At 390 miles, that would take a lot of graph paper to map out that dungeon.