Can Mountains block off Land

[Dremag Kest]

I had a question about mountains function.I have tectonics on my map done. I was wondering can mountains block off land completely or would i need to leave a strip of land that is traversal by foot?

[XCali]

There can be cliffs, or like Hawaii where the mountains is incredibly sheer as it goes into the ocean at places, so I would say I can fully see mountains blocking of an edge, if that is your meaning. If your meaning is the ENTIRE coast line then I would be far too hesitant.

[Dremag Kest]

There can be cliffs, or like Hawaii where the mountains is incredibly sheer as it goes into the ocean at places, so I would say I can fully see mountains blocking of an edge, if that is your meaning. If your meaning is the ENTIRE coast line then I would be far too hesitant.

My meaning is an entire coast. I have a continental plate smashing into an other continental plate. Similar to the Indian plate

[Jean-Abdel]

If you have very high mountains like the Himalayas it will obviously be hard to pass through but you will probably have passes where it's still possible. You can do pretty much anything, depending on the height of your mountains

[waldronate]

It's possible to use mountains to block off an area (a massive earthquake can cause a large rupture that results in cliffs that are impassable by humans). However, such configurations are geologically unstable and will break down over millions of years. Even on a much smaller time scale (thousands of years) erosion at the coastline by waves and rivers will likely break open little areas that allow access along the coast with simple boats. And even the most impassable barrier is likely to have areas that are less impassable than others.

Plate collisions tend to deform plastically in the long run. Rock crumbles and break and erodes as it's smashed at the surface and squishes like toothpaste down deep. Also, plates tend to move in one direction or the other. It's very hard to get a large area surrounded by impassably high mountains. Not impossible, just hard.

Ultimately, you need to decide why that barrier is important for the stories that you're telling and then you can apply some creative explanations about how it got that way. Remember that most of the observable features of our world have been inexplicable at one point or another in history (well, except at the earlier stage where the explanation was "the god/s made it that way because they love/hate us and we have to live with it.")