Durin’s Tower

An ancient tower created in the earliest days of Khazad-dûm; given its name, it was presumably created by Durin the Deathless himself. It was reached by the Endless Stair, a long spiralling stairway that led from the lowest depths of the Dwarf-city to the peak of Zirakzigil, westernmost of the Mountains of Moria. On that peak stood Durin's Tower, carved from the rock of the mountain, and from it a single entranceway led out onto a space that looked down on the world far below.

By the end of the Third Age, the Stair and the Tower had long been lost, and some thought that they belonged to legend, or had been destroyed in the thousands of years since they were made. In fact they remained intact at that time, and after his fall in Moria, Gandalf pursued Durin's Bane up the Endless Stair to emerge from Durin's Tower, where they fought the Battle of the Peak. The elemental forces unleashed in that battle caused the tower to crumble and fall, and after that time all that remained of Durin's Tower was a jumble of broken and burned stone that blocked the upper entrance to the Endless Stair.