Nah theres no way to skip ahead to bald mountain, since you really need to meet the emperor first in that imperial audience quest. I remember trying to explore everywhere early on but the game keeps you on track here. Once you finish up in white orchard, you'll get called to vizima to chat with emperor emhyr, and thats basically your ticket to the rest of the world. The whole bald mountain stuff comes way later after youve done a bunch of other main quests and explored places like velen and novigrad.

Actually interesting to note, even though the game is pretty open world after meeting the emperor, some story bits like this are still locked in a specific order which makes sense when you think about it. The whole ladies of the wood storyline needs to happen first, and trust me you dont wanna miss that anyway its pretty wild.

Good to know: you'll know when youre actually ready for bald mountain cause by then youll have gone through quite a journey with some pretty intense story moments!