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| Sam, Frodo and Gullom at the Black Gate. |
I continued my
(virtual) “Walk to Mordor” during the past week by logging 10 more miles since
my last update. I walked/jogged five miles on Wednesday and five more today (Friday).
So far, I’ve logged 1,470 total miles on this virtual trip to Mount Doom, and
I’ve got 309 more miles to go before I reach Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed
about 82.6 percent of the total trip.
In relation to Frodo
Baggins’ overall journey to destroy the One Ring at Mount Doom in Mordor, I’m on
the ninth day/night of the trip past Rauros Falls, which is March 4/5 on the
Middle Earth calendar. I left off my last update on the night before at Mile 1460
and three miles later, at Mile 1463, Frodo, Samwise Gamgee and Gollum descend a
last hill face and reach the Desolation of the Morannon, where there are
gasping pools and mounds of slag.
They stop at the first
slag heap, but fumes drive them away. They crawl into a “wide, almost circular
pit, high-banked on the west.” An oily ooze fills the bottom, but they stay
here throughout the rest of the daylight hours of March 4.
On waking, Sam hears
Gollum’s debate, and Sam wonders who “she” is without knowing that Gollum is
referring to the giant spider, Shelob. At dusk, they crawl out of the pit and
creep slowly forward. Two miles later, at Mile 1465, a Nazgul passes over, so
the group pauses for a while.
Four miles later, at
Mile 1469, a Nazgul flies over on its way to Isengard. This is around midnight
and it terrifies Gollum, who refuses to go on until ordered to do so by Frodo.
I’ve traveled one mile
beyond this point, to Mile 1470, and the next significant milestone comes five
miles later at Mile 1475 when, at dawn, the group can see guards on the wall
above the Black Gate. It’s here that they hide in a hollow and watch the Army
of Easterlings and an army of Southrons arrive.
For those of you
reading this for the first time, I began this “Walk to Mordor” fitness
challenge on Jan. 1, 2015. Using a book called “The Atlas of Middle-Earth” by
Karen Wynn Fonstad, fans of “The Lord of the Rings” created this challenge by
mapping out Frodo’s fictional trek to Mordor, calculating the total distance at
1,779 miles. They also used the original "Lord of the Rings" text to
outline the journey, so you can follow their route by keeping up with your
total mileage.
The folks who worked
out the nuts and bolts of this virtual journey have divided it into four parts.
It’s 458 miles from Hobbiton to Rivendell, 462 miles from Rivendell through
Moria to Lothlorien, 389 miles from Lothlorien down the Anduin to Rauros Falls
and 470 miles from Rauros to Mount Doom. (Those locations should sound very
familiar to “Lord of the Rings” fans.) The hobbits averaged 18 miles a day, but
if you walk (or jog, as I sometimes do) five miles a day, it’s possible to
cover 1,779 miles in a year.
If you’re interested in
learning more about the “Walk to Mordor Challenge,” I suggest you check out two
Web sites, http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2012/07/23/walking/
and http://home.insightbb.com/~eowynchallenge/.
Both of these sites provide a ton of details about the challenge, including how
to get started.
In the end, check back
next Friday for another update and to see how much closer I am to Mordor. I
hope to knock out at least 10 more miles next week, and I’ll include all that
in my update next week.
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