The High Pass

The northern road over the mountains

The High Pass lies east of Rivendell, where the Great East Road leaves the valley of the Bruinen and climbs into the heart of the Misty Mountains. The road winds up through a country of narrow gullies and false paths, many of which end at cliffs or lead into ravines, so that a guide was wanted even in good weather. Above the treeline the pass runs between bare shoulders of rock and snow, exposed to storms that break with little warning; on the night of Thorin's crossing the giants of the high valleys were hurling boulders through the thunder. On the eastern side the path drops steeply toward the vale of Anduin and reaches the river at the Old Ford, above which stands the Carrock.

The pass was the ancient road between Eriador and Wilderland, older than the kingdoms of Men, and in the days of Arnor and the Northmen it carried much traffic. In Unfinished Tales it is called Cirith Forn en Andrath, the high-climbing pass of the north, and the road that ran over it was reckoned part of the same highway that went on across Mirkwood. By the late Third Age, however, the goblins of Goblin-town had cut a Front Porch onto the pass itself, a cave opening on the road where unwary travellers sheltered and were taken. Every route over the mountains had become dangerous, and the High Pass was watched by the goblins of the Misty Mountains from below and by the Great Eagles from above.

Gandalf led Thorin's company over the High Pass in the summer of T.A. 2941 on advice from Elrond, and the goblins took them from the cave where they sheltered from a storm. Gandalf killed the Great Goblin, the company escaped by the back door on the eastern slopes, and Bilbo, lost in the dark, came away with the Ring. The goblins hunted them down the pass with wargs until the Eagles carried the company to the Carrock. The deaths of the Great Goblin and of Bolg's army at Erebor that autumn cleared the pass for a time, and Bilbo returned home by it the next spring with Gandalf and Beorn.

After 2941 the Beornings under Beorn and then Grimbeorn took the pass into their keeping and, together with the Ford of Carrock, kept it open for travellers in return for tolls. In late 3018 the Fellowship did not use it: the Redhorn Pass lay nearer their road south, and the High Pass was too far north for a company bound for Gondor. It continued in use through the Fourth Age as the ordinary road between the Shire, Rivendell and Dale.

The crossing of the northern Misty Mountains between Rivendell in the west and the Old Ford of Anduin in the east, carrying the Great East Road. Goblin-town lies directly beneath it and Mount Gundabad is far to the north.