Ash Mountains

The Ash Mountains of northern Mordor (slightly conjectural)¹

A range of grey, mist-shrouded mountains that ran out of the eastern lands almost directly westward for more than two hundred miles to form the northern border of the land of the Mordor. The ridged and broken landscape of the range was the grey colour of ash, from which they took their Elvish name Ered Lithui,² variously translated as the Ash or Ashen Mountains.

From the southern side of the main range, spurs of rock extended out into the deserts of northern Mordor. Between the two longest of these rocky spurs, running along the central third of the range, was a wide lowland known as Lithlad, the plain of ash. The westernmost major spur, forming Lithlad's western edge, extended into the Plateau of Gorgoroth and angled toward Orodruin. It was on the end of this rocky outcropping that Sauron chose to build his Dark Tower of Barad-dûr.

At their western end, the Ash Mountains divided into two arms, thrusting out to form the wide flat-bottomed valley of Udûn. It was here that the mountains met the range of the Mountains of Shadow, Ephel Dúath running northward along Mordor's western border. In the far northwest of the land, the two ranges came together to form the narrow Haunted Pass of Cirith Gorgor. Here Sauron built a vast Black Gate, the Morannon, to guard the main northern entrance to his Dark Land. Some miles to the south, at the other end of the road through Udûn, the second western arm of the Ash Mountains also came close to a spur of the Mountains of Shadow, forming an inner guarded pass into Mordor known as Carach Angren.

From the Morannon at the range's western extent, a road had been made³ that skirted the northern foothills of the Ash Mountains for at least fifty miles. After Sauron was defeated at the end of the Second Age, the Gondorians kept this road in repair as part of their guard on Sauron's old strongholds. Eventually their watch failed, and the road was used instead by enemies of Gondor coming out of the East, because it allowed easy travel while the geography of the mountains hid approaching armies from watchers in the west.⁴

Most notable among these Easterling attackers were the Wainriders in III 1944, who followed the line of the Ash Mountains with a great force. The road along the mountains allowed them to approach Gondor with stealth and with remarkable speed. They were met by King Ondoher, whose death in the ensuing battle caused a crisis in Gondor. The Wainriders were ultimately defeated at the Battle of the Camp, and the victorious Gondorian general Eärnil eventually succeeded Ondoher as King of Gondor.

The same tactic was used during the War of the Ring more than a thousand years later, when the Captains of the West parleyed with the Mouth of Sauron at the Black Gate. After this parley failed, the Morannon was opened and Orcs emerged, but an army of Easterlings also suddenly appeared. These had been standing ready beneath the northern Ash Mountains, concealed from the Captains of the West by the formation of rocks around the Gate, so that they could join the battle without warning. (In the event this tactic proved fruitless, as the destruction of the Ring brought about the defeat of Sauron and his armies.)