Ephel Dúath

The Mountains of Shadow rose along the eastern edge of Ithilien as a long wall of black, jagged peaks, running from the Black Gate in the north down the whole western side of Mordor and then bending eastward to fence its southern side as well. Seen from Gondor they were a line of darkness on the horizon beneath the smoke of Mount Doom; from within they fell in cliffs and screes to the inner trough, above which a second, lower ridge, the Morgai, ran parallel to the main range before the plain of Gorgoroth began. The trough between the two walls was the only place in the north of Mordor where anything grew, and there Frodo and Sam found thorns and a trickle of foul water.

The range had two western crossings. The Morgul Pass climbed from the valley of Minas Morgul over the mountains on a road fit for armies, and it was by this road that the host of Morgul marched and that Sauron's armies came and went. High above it lay the secret cleft of Cirith Ungol, reached by stairs from the Morgul Vale, guarded by the spider Shelob and by the tower beyond her tunnel. Elsewhere the mountains were sheer and pathless.

The mountains were the first line of Sauron's defence from the Second Age, and the Last Alliance crossed them only after breaking his army on Dagorlad and passing the northern gap. Gondor held the western slopes and fortified the passes in the early Third Age, building Minas Ithil in a valley of the range and the tower of Cirith Ungol on the pass, but after the Great Plague of 1636 the fortresses were abandoned, and the Nazgûl took Minas Ithil in 2002. From then on the Shadow that lay on the mountains spread westward into Ithilien. In March 3019 Frodo, Sam and Gollum climbed the stairs above Minas Morgul, passed Shelob's tunnel and came through Cirith Ungol into Mordor; after Frodo's rescue from the tower the hobbits made their way north along the Morgai before turning east across the plain. With the fall of Sauron the mountains ceased to be a frontier of fear, though the Morgul Vale was left empty.

The Ephel Dúath ran from the Morannon in the north along the whole western side of Mordor and then east along its south, meeting the open lands of Nurn and Khand. The Morgul Vale and the Morgul Pass lay opposite Minas Tirith; Cirith Ungol was a little to the north of them. The Morgai ridge paralleled the range on the inner side in the north.