There's a faster path to Iverstead that doesn't require you to take the very long road from Whiterun (only a part of it).

1/ go east from Whiterun direction Windhelm/Iverstead/Winterhold. You cross the bridge, turn north east and follow the river . Soon after you pass the bandit camp, (which is more up the hill) before you get to the guardian stone there is a path going in the mountains
( the start of it is indicated with 2 piles of stones on each side of it and in the distance you see the valtheim towers bridge) just follow this up the mountain. In my case it was safe with only one or 2 wolfs I think. (The main road has bandits at the valtheim towers)

You reach the top and the path goes down again. It ends in another path.if you go left here (don't if you want to go to Ivarstead) you end up straight in front of fort Amol on the major road again.
You would have passed this if you had followed the normal signed road to ivarstead so you can start the short cut from this point on the mainroad as well if you like.

2/ So instead go right and head up the mountain. The path leads to a river. Look on your map. You can get to Ivarstead directly from there and you end up in town fromtheside of the barrow. The 7000 steps start after the bridge on your right when you reach the main road in town almost straight after the barrow

They start at the south east part of the mountain iirc

I just ran up all the steps to the Keep. Never stopped to fight anything. Just stopped once to talk to a chick sitting at one of the marker stones. That was it.

Yeah I think a few people have done this, however everyone has a different experience and some people have spent hours looking for the path so this was just to help guide people in the right direction

When I first started I climb-jumped my way up there. Was too lazy to look for the path.

There's a turn up the mountain that gets really obscured by the snowstorm.

Yeah thats what I did hence the video