I never even met him in my first playthrough until I got to Zora's Domain, stupidley went mountain climbing, waited for the rain to stop a few times, even made a campfire under a tree because the rain wouldn't stop (I didn't realise it was because of Ruta back then) and I didn't have the tower...
Yeah the ending is lacking from other games. You fight a giant robot spider of whom you can easily dispose of with a x5 lynel bow, ancient arrows and stasis+. And the second form is just a mindless pig that can’t even kill you unless you let it. Then Zelda kills him and says “ Do you remember...
I would recommend getting most of the towers and looking for shrines from there to build up your stamina and heart containers. Then do some small side quests and maybe then do 2 of the divine beats before exploring a bit more. I’d sat Vah Ruta (The Elephant) and Vah Medoh (The Bird) would be the...
Or it may be that the Mogmas died out
and since they were the only living creatures that inhabited Eldin Volcano at that point no one was really there but maybe a few years later Gorons found it but without knowing of its previous name named it Death Mountain.