White Mountains

The range

The White Mountains ran for some three hundred miles from the Gap of Rohan in the west to the hill of Mindolluin in the east, where Minas Tirith was built against the mountain's knees. They were the barrier between the grasslands of Rohan to the north and the southern fiefs of Gondor, Lamedon, Lebennin and Belfalas, to the south. Their peaks were high and snowy through the year, and their name in Sindarin, Ered Nimrais, means the white-horned mountains.

On the northern side the range threw out long valleys and spurs into Rohan: Harrowdale beneath the Starkhorn, where Edoras and Dunharrow stood; the Deeping-coomb beneath the Thrihyrne, with Helm's Deep; and towards the east a line of outlying hills, Halifirien, Calenhad, Min-Rimmon, Erelas, Nardol, Eilenach and Amon Dîn, on which Gondor kept its beacons. On the southern side the rivers of Gondor rose: the Morthond that came out below the Paths of the Dead, the Ringló and Ciril, and the five rivers of Lebennin.

Peoples of the mountains

In the First Age the Drúedain lived in the range and the Drúadan Forest at its eastern end; their carved images, the Púkel-men, still lined the stair to Dunharrow. In the Second Age the mountains were held by the Men of the Mountains, a people akin to the Dunlendings who served Sauron in the Dark Years and whose king broke his oath to Isildur. Their shades, the Dead Men of Dunharrow, haunted the Paths of the Dead until Aragorn released them.

The Númenóreans fortified the passes when they founded Gondor, building the Hornburg in the west and setting the Stone of Erech at the mountains' southern foot. Anárion raised Minas Anor against Mindolluin, and Elendil's tomb was placed for a time on Halifirien at the range's midpoint, the boundary between Gondor's provinces. In the Third Age the northern valleys passed to the Rohirrim with Calenardhon, and the refuges of Dunharrow and Helm's Deep became the strongholds of the Mark. The beacons of Gondor were lit along the northern hills in March 3019 to call Rohan to the Pelennor Fields, and the muster of Rohan followed the mountains eastward, passing through the Drúadan Forest at their end.

The White Mountains formed the southern border of Rohan and the northern border of the coastal regions of Gondor. Their western end faced Isengard across the Gap of Rohan; their eastern end, Mindolluin, overlooked the Anduin at Minas Tirith. The Great West Road ran along their northern feet from Minas Tirith to the Fords of Isen.