Dark Forest was very much an afterthought and they rushed on the idea of blending UG Land in with Th13teen. Hence why all that happened was existing buildings given a lick of green paint and cheap fake vines plastered all over the place (half of which were removed in 2011/12).
There has always been a staff access path in that area but it had to be removed during construction.What I find more interesting is that this ride does seem to have created a new path linking it and Gloomy Woods. If you look at an aerial picture of the station there appears to be a T-Junction in the path just after the Katanga Canyon sign. The left side follows the old route but the right is new. The path passes alongside SW8’s break run, under the lift hill and connects to the new acces path they created last year.
If this is a usable path next year it’ll have some great views of the ride and provide a really useful shortcut to Gloomy Woods and the Valley.
Edit:
You can see the path on the plans but it doesn’t say if it’s going to be opened or just for access.
Yes, that will probably be closed, as it is a staff only path but they opened it publically last year as the construction site took up part of the public path. Now that the main path is back open, that path will probably revert back to staff-only use (hence it not being on the plans).
It isn't
Well it is not available to buy, the Annual Pass has been replaced with a Season Pass:
I agree it's a decent idea, it just sucks that it replaced the proper annual pass.
