Friday, December 22, 2017

'WALK TO MORDOR' UPDATE: 1,601 miles down and 178 miles to go

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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