Discover New Zealand, Home of Middle Earth
	I believe that this is the "great grey wall, a last huge upthrusting mass of mountain stone" that the hobbits encountered but could not climb. As can be seen in the photo, one can get around it, but in the dark, as Gollum planned, it appeared to be impregnable. It is just above the tunnel entrance which appeared to be the only way into Mordor. About a mile away, just below the peaks of the Ephel Duath, there is another small opening at what we assumed was the other end of the tunnel.
	From the tunnel exit, a narrow, crooked path leads tortuously upward to the peaks, as shown on the left. Sam must have found this path difficult indeed! At the very top, the path turns left and plunges steeply down, as shown in the right photo. The land is hard and cold and bitter here, and immediately seems to grow darker and more brown and bare, as if nothing wants to live here or grow. Far away on the horizon, one can see the very peaks of the White Mountains.
	The tower of Cirith Ungol, built originally by Gondor to keep watch on Mordor, once stood in this area, but we could find nothing which might be its ruins except this column of broken rock. Could this be the last remains of some kind of buttress or supporting column, or perhaps all that is left of the Two Watchers? Beyond and below the peak is a lower ridge, notched and jagged as it falls to the dark plain far below. This is the Morgai, the inner ring of the fences of Mordor.
	Like the hobbits, we stumbled down into the trough shown above and soon found the orc path that winds down from the area of the Cirith Ungol. There are no orc camps or fires now, and the Orodruin, or Mount Doom, is clearly visible in the distance over a brown, almost lifeless plain. There is some vegetation, but it is mostly brown, dry weeds, clinging to life in this arid and barren land. There are no roads here, either across the pass or on the plain below.
	We followed the hobbits' path northward along the Morgai. Approaching the northern end, before turning east toward the Isenmouthe, we found ourselves looking out toward the northwest at the slag mounds and the location of the Battle of the Morannon. Here Aragorn and the men of Gondor and Rohan challenged the power of the Dark Lord. In the distance one can see the broad battle plain where the Army of the Last Alliance was arrayed against the forces of Sauron.
	The land here is broken and blasted, the Udun, between the Isenmouthe and Cirith Gorgor where the black gate once stood. It is fairly level, but high above the level of the plain of North Ithilien to the west. The left photo shows the view north, toward the site of the Last Battle. To the right is the spot where Isuldur cut the Ring from Sauron's hand. From here is 70 miles to Mount Doom where he should have destroyed it, but 400 miles to the Gladden Fields, where it destroyed him.
	The Plain of Gorgoroth is flat and bare, ringed by small mounds of broken stones. There are no trees or roads here, only dry, weedy grasses and thorny bushes clinging to life in this barren wasteland. It is a wide lake of darkness, unbroken by fires or the red glow of the fires of Mount Doom which once dominated this dismal scene. The desolation is almost palpable, and it was not difficult to decide not to investigate the ruin of Mount Doom itself, but to head back toward Gondor.
	We contented ourselves with the thought that we were following (more or less) the path of the eagles that rescued Frodo and Sam from the final eruption of Mount Doom. We climbed back along the pass over the Morgai, shown on the left, about 30 miles north of Cirith Ungol, and the road to Minas Morgul. From the top of the Ephel Duath we could see a path past Henneth Annun which is very close to that taken by the Army of Gondor and Rohan after their victory.
	While the Rohirrim were galloping southwest to come to the Aid of Gondor, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were rallying the Forgotten People who eventually fulfilled their oath to Isuldur and rid themselves of his curse. The company emerged from the Paths of the Dead into the uplands of a great vale, probably at or not far from the location shown on the left. Here the Morthrond flows for about 190 miles to the Ringlo and thence to the sea near Dol Amroth.
	From the Stone at Erech, Aragorn and his Grey Company, the ghostly armies of the Forgotten People, hastened for 170 miles along the path through Tarlang's Neck, a long, narrow gully between the southwestern slopes of the White Mountains and the peak of Lamedon. They passed Calembel, a township on the Ciril, and then crossed this bridge at Ethring where the path crosses the Ringlo, shown at right just upstream from the bridge.
	Their journey took them an additional 110 miles along the area south of the White Mountains to the area of Linhir, above the mouth of the River Gilrain, in Lebennin. There was a battle going on here between the men of Lamedon, citizens of Gondor, and the Southrons of Umbar and Harad. Both sides were terrified of the Grey Company, but Aragorn rallied the men of Lamedon, and they chased the Southrons to the harbor at Pelargir, where there was another battle.
	It was at the shores of the Gilrain, shown on the left, that Legolas met his doom, for Linhir was close enough to the sea that Legolas could hear the seagulls crying and, as Galadriel had predicted, the sound triggered his desire to see the Blessed Lands once more, and he was unable to forget them. Legolas did not say he actually saw the sea, so the must have been some distance upstream, shielded from the sea itself by the last foothills of the White Mountains.
	This is the harbor at Pelargir, where the mighty Anduin empties into the Bay of Belfalas at the southernmost edge of the White Mountains. Here Aragorn and company captured the fleet of Umbar, fifty capital ships and "smaller vessels beyond count." At first they had to row, but the wind changed (as Ghan-Buri-Ghan had predicted in the Druadan Forest), so they reached the harbor at Harlond in time to be decisive in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
	Here at last our journey ends where it began, at the shores of the great sea. It is said that in the year of the passing of King Elessar, Legolas built a grey ship in Ithilien, and sailed down Anduin and so over sea, and with him, enchanted by the desire once more to see the beauty of Galadriel, went his closest friend, Gimli the Dwarf. And with their departure, and ours, an end has come at last to our participation in the Fellowship of the Ring.
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