Interpreting Ridgelines

I am inclined to accept all the lines in the mountains as ridges, though I am not 100% decided on the issue. As I see it, if only ridgelines are shown, then some must both go up and down and meet at low point in the middle. this is caused because there are major north/south ridges with only east/west lines between them and they aren't easily explained as low spot because they are connected to spurs coming out of the range. I picture it as a series of east west ridges connecting the north south ridges forming successive saddles. Sort of like  many strings stung across two rails:

In the map below I have marked what I consider to be the direction of slope in this interpretation. the red arrows point downslope, the red circles are peaks, and the yellow lines are low points or the bottom of a saddle.

the biggest issue with this interpretation is the western side of the lost valley. the mountains around the valley must slope up based on textual descriptions and be steep, this means that the edge of those mountains into darokin is probably a straight drop. It can't be sloping down from teh valley edge to the foothills because that would be a slope over a distance of 2 miles to a height of up to 4000 ft for the valley floor, that is not steep enough to be inaccessible to the outside world.

The main reason I'm thinking the lines are all ridges is because of their complete interconnectedness. If there were a valley in between spurs the lines of the valley bottom wouldn't connect directly to the central ridge, there would be small gaps between the central ridge and the valleys. This pattern can be seen in many mountain ranges on google earth.