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| Samwise Gamgee battles Shelob, the giant spider. |
I continued my
(virtual) “Walk to Mordor” during the past week by logging 13 miles since my last
update. I walked/jogged five miles on Saturday, three more on Wednesday and
five more yesterday (Thursday). So far, I’ve logged 1,601 total miles on this
virtual trip to Mount Doom, and I’ve got 178 more miles to go before I reach
Mordor. All in all, I’ve completed about 89.9 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 17th day of the trip past Rauros Falls, which is March 12 on the Middle
Earth calendar. I left off my last update on March 11 at Mile 1588, which was
one mile from the point where Gollum woke Frodo and Samwise Gamgee around 4
p.m. on the “Dawnless Day.” One mile later, at Mile 1589, they turn south across
a long broken slope.
One mile later, at Mile
1590, they turn east and reach the Southward Road. They follow the road into a
great ring of trees to the Cross-roads. Here, the setting sun lights the fallen
head of the statue of a King of Gondor.
One mile later, at Mile
1591, they pass east out of the trees, following the Morgul-road. The road here
climbs steeply, but it’s straight. One mile later, at Mile 1592, the road cuts
through the steep-faced drop at the top of a “flatiron” and curves sharply
south around a “great shoulder of rock.”
One mile later, at Mile
1593, the road curves east again, next too the ravine of the Morgulduin. The
way slants up steeply, and it’s here that Frodo glances across the vale and
sees Minas Morgul. Half a mile later, they come to the white bridge. The road
crosses it and winds up to the city gates. All is rotten and cold. Frodo
totters forward as if to cross the bridge, but Sam stops him. Gollum leads them
back across the road to a gap in the stone wall – a path along the slopes north
of the river.
One mile later, Frodo
stops on a high shelf overlooking the city as the Morgul-host marches forth.
Half a mile later, at Mile 1595, they continue up the path a short way and
reach the bottom of the Straight Stair, which is cut into the cliff with walls
on each side. The steps are narrow, uneven and steep as a ladder.
Half a mile later, above
the stair, the cutting continues with a winding path – still climbing but there’s
no need for steps as it seems “to go on for miles.” A mile and a half later, at
Mile 1597, they reach a wide shelf with a cliff on the left and a chasm on the
right. At this point, they are no longer climbing and the ground is rough and
broken.
A mile and half later,
they reach the bottom of the Winding Stair, which zig-zags up the sloping
cliff. At one point, the stair even looks down on the wraith-road. A half-mile
later, at Mile 1599, the reach the top of the stairs and see red light through the
window at the top of the Tower “a long way off.” The group sleeps there between
two great piers of rock. All around are “jagged pinnacles, crevices and
fissures.”
At this point, Frodo
and Sam sleep the rest of the day and all night. However, Gollum visits the
giant spider, Shelob, while the hobbits sleeps. In all, this period of rest
takes up an estimated 30 hours.
The next day’s travels
begin with Sam awakening to find Gollum “pawing at Frodo” and having a “sneak”
conversation. They eventually get going, and Gollum leads them up “a long
raving between piers and columns of torn and weathered rocks.”
One mile later, at Mile
1600, they reach the opening of Shelob’s Lair. The tunnel here, which climbs
slowly, is so high and wide that Frodo and Sam can’t touch hands as they feel
their way along each wall. I’ve traveled one more mile beyond this point, to
Mile 1601, where Sam feels an opening on the right. The next significant milestone
comes one mile later, at Mile 1602, where Sam feels another opening on the
right.
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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