The Misty Mountains

The wall between west and east

The Misty Mountains, Hithaeglir in the Elvish tongue, form the spine of north-western Middle-earth. They rise at Mount Gundabad in the far north, where the Grey Mountains branch away eastward, and run almost straight southward until they sink into the foothills above Isengard and the forest of Fangorn. West of them lies Eriador; east of them the vale of Anduin and the wide lands of Rhovanion. For most travellers of the Third Age the range was simply the wall that had to be crossed, and there were only a handful of ways over it.

The northern crossing was the High Pass, above Rivendell, where the Great East Road climbed through a country of ravines and gullies and came down toward the Anduin at the Old Ford. Farther south the Redhorn Pass climbed over the shoulder of Caradhras and descended by the Dimrill Stair into Dimrill Dale, the doorstep of Moria. Beneath the mountains ran Moria itself, whose two gates offered the only passage under the range. At the southern end the Gap of Rohan, between Methedras and the White Mountains, allowed armies and traders to go round rather than over.

The peaks were snow-capped even in summer and hung with the mists that gave the range its name. Three of the highest, Caradhras the Redhorn, Celebdil the Silvertine and Fanuidhol the Cloudyhead, stood together above Moria and were known to the Dwarves as Barazinbar, Zirakzigil and Bundushathûr. On the summit of Celebdil stood Durin's Tower, reached by the Endless Stair from the roots of the mountain.

Waters and inhabitants

Many rivers rise in the range. Westward flow the Bruinen and the Hoarwell, which join to make the Greyflood, and the Glanduin and the Isen farther south. Eastward the Gladden and the Silverlode run down to the Anduin, which itself springs from the northern heights where the Misty and Grey Mountains meet. The eastern valleys were greener and more sheltered than the bare western slopes, and on that side lay Dimrill Dale with Mirrormere, the most sacred place of the Longbeards.

The range was the ancestral home of Durin's folk. Durin I awoke at Gundabad and founded Khazad-dûm beneath the three peaks, and for more than two ages the Dwarves held the heart of the mountains. Its other permanent people were less welcome: the goblins of the Misty Mountains, whose tunnels honeycombed the northern holds around Goblin-town and Gundabad and who preyed on every road and pass. High above both lived the Great Eagles, whose lord Gwaihir kept his eyrie in the northern mountains, and in the wildest valleys stone-giants hurled rocks at one another in storms.

The Elder Days

The Silmarillion records that Melkor raised the Misty Mountains in the Years of the Trees as a barrier to hinder the riding of Oromë, who hunted his creatures across Middle-earth. When the Eldar set out on the Great Journey from Cuiviénen the range daunted many of them. The Nandor under Lenwë refused to cross and turned south down the Anduin, and it was long before the main host of the Teleri could be led over into Eriador. The Dwarves crossed it too, but from beneath: the Longbeards made Khazad-dûm their chief mansion, and in the First Age the Dwarf-road ran from the Blue Mountains to its western gate.

The Second Age

After the drowning of Beleriand the mountains became the seat of dwarvish power, and the Elves of Eregion, led by Celebrimbor, settled at the western feet of the range to trade with Moria. When Sauron destroyed Eregion in S.A. 1697 the Dwarves shut their doors, and the mountains became a frontier held by Rivendell on one side and the orcs on the other. Sauron's servants first took Gundabad in this age, a wound the Dwarves never forgave.

The Third Age

The fall of Moria in T.A. 1980, when the Dwarves delving beneath Caradhras released the Balrog that became known as Durin's Bane, gave the whole range to the orcs. Sauron filled Moria with them in 2480 and set up holds in the mountains to bar the passes, and for the next five centuries orc raids came down into Eriador and the Anduin vales. In 2509 Celebrían was seized in the Redhorn Pass, and in 2747 a band from Mount Gram reached the Shire itself. The Dwarves answered in the War of the Dwarves and Orcs of 2793 to 2799, hunting the orcs through every hold from Gundabad to the Gladden and destroying their host at Azanulbizar before the East-gate of Moria.

The mountains still swarmed with goblins in 2941, when Thorin's company was captured in the High Pass and Bilbo found the One Ring in the tunnels below. The Great Goblin's death and the slaughter of the goblin army at the Battle of Five Armies broke their strength for a generation, and the Beornings afterwards kept the High Pass open. In January 3019 the Fellowship failed to cross Caradhras in a storm and went beneath the mountains through Moria, where Gandalf fell with the Balrog and fought it up the Endless Stair to the summit of Celebdil. With the end of the War of the Ring the orcs of the mountains dwindled, and in the Fourth Age Durin VII led the Dwarves back into Khazad-dûm.

A range of roughly nine hundred miles running north to south from Mount Gundabad to Methedras. Crossed by the High Pass in the north and the Redhorn Pass in the centre, and passable beneath through Moria. Eriador lies west, the Anduin vales east; Rivendell, Eregion and Isengard sit in its western foothills, Lothlórien and Dimrill Dale in its eastern ones.