A long, long time (11 years!) ago, on a blog far, far away, I wrote about my experience of making an 80 mile round trip to a movie theater where The Fellowship of the Ring was playing. In the course of those musings, I thought a lot about how I had imagined Middle Earth to have looked and how that contrasted with what Peter Jackson and Weta workshop came up with.
I first read The Hobbit when I was seven years old. I tackled The Lord of the Rings for the first time when I was nine, but didn't finish; it wasn't until I was ten that I made the trip all the way with Frodo to Mount Doom and back. This means that at the time, my world was still pretty small, but it offered lots of locales that did just fine for me in picturing Middle Earth, though I find I mostly have stuff for locations in The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Shire - downtown Saratoga, WY
The Old Forest - Aspen Alley near Encampment, WY
Old Man Willow and the Withywindle - The western bank of the North Platte River, Saratoga, WY
(This was my backyard when I lived in Saratoga for a few years as an adult)
Tom Bombadil's Front Yard - My dad's rock garden, Saratoga, WY
(really just an excuse to show you all the only known specimen of the Stumpalope again)
Tom Bombadil's house - CCC shelter, Veterans Island, Saratoga, WY
The Prancing Pony - the Hotel Wolf, Saratoga, WY
The Barrow Downs - Baggot Rocks, just north of Encampment, WY
Weathertop/Amon Syl - Libby Flats Observation Point, Snowy Range, WY
Rivendell - Medicine Bow Lodge, Snowy Range, WY
(There's a creek that runs by it but no, no Bruinen-type rivers up there in the mountains)
Rivendell/View from Elrond's Back Deck - Lake Marie spillway into French Creek, Snowy Range, WY
Caradhras - Medicine Bow Peak, Snowy Range, WY
(It's a hell of a hike, but there is a trail that goes to the top of that sucker,
which tops off at just above 12,000 feet!)
The Gate To Moria - Bellamy Lake, Snowy Range, WY
(The Snowy Range makes good Misty Mountains, no?)
The Carrock - Castle Rock, Green River, WY
(Yeah, from The Hobbit. So is the next one. Heh.)
Erebor, aka The Lonely Mountain - Devil's Tower National Monument, northeastern WY
(No brainer, this one!)
Lothlorien - Vedauwoo and environs, between Cheyenne and Laramie, WY
(I couldn't imagine deciduous trees bigger than these cottonwoods!)
Argonath - The North Platte River below Sheeprock near Saratoga, WY
Fangorn (getting logged by Saruman) - Brush Creek Campground, Snowy Range, WY
Rohan - Red Desert, WY
Helm's Deep - Seminole Dam - Rawlins/Alcova, WY
(Don't ask me why I always pictured a dam; I guess it was just the biggest manmade structure I'd yet seen)
Ithilien - A stone cabin near Kemmerer, WY
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Osgiliath - Ames Monument - northeast of Laramie, WY
The Dead Marshes - Boiling mud, Yellowstone Natonal Park, WY
The Gate to Mordor - Devil's Gate, central Wyoming, southwest of Casper, WY
The Stairs of Cirith Ungol - Hell's Half Acre, southwest of Casper, WY
(This area served as the alien planet for the film Starship Troopers)
Barad-Dur - Denver, CO on a smoggy day - YUCK
And what about you, dear readers and fellow #PtBiB participants? Did anyone else populate the landscape of Middle Earth with familiar childhood sights like I did?
