Hobbit Walk: Completed 912 miles in Fellowship of the Ring!

This post requires no working knowledge of the Lord of the Rings series, but does make mention of names and places. Mainly, it's about walking. A lot.

I closed out the April PT log and found I had completed my 912 mile goal (running, waking, biking) to walk "Fellowship of the Ring". I started this journey 2013 July 21. It's the second "Hobbit walk" I've completed, having done "The Hobbit" in 2012-2013. At this point in the story, the Fellowship has broken,  Boromir is slain, Pippin and Merry are captured by orcs, and Aragorn, Legless Lego Legolas and Gimli return to Parth Gelen. (Note, I did not "rewalk" the trip from Hobbiton to Rivendell. It would have been too boring.

The 912 includes the 629 from Hobbit plus 61 miles unaccounted for by the people who originally compiled the miles for the Walks I'm basing my mileage on.) The trek is broken down into shorter goals, usually bookmarked by events in the book (443 miles in, reach the bridge of Durin's Deep. Gandalf fights the Balrog!)

Timelines and distances are wibbly wobbly between the last two books, so this is how I've broken it up.

In "The Two Towers" the end goal is Minas Tirith, so we travel 470 miles to get everyone roughly to saruman. Then, 786 to get everyone to Minas Tirith. That's  1,256 for Two Towers!

Most of the mileage in Return of the King is traveling backwards along places we've already traveled. Boring! So, 138 miles for Aragorn to get from Minas Tirith to Morannon and the black gates. I saved Frodo/Sam's trip to Mt. Doom, all 470 miles of it, to melt the ring. Then 120 miles back to Minas Tirith for Aragorn's crowning. (Skipping 1,625 miles of retraversing the world back to Bag End.) Then 467 miles to travel to the Grey Havens! 1,195 miles for Return of the King!

It might take me a year to get through the next book, but it's kind of cool to think that I'm continuing a goal I started two years ago!

The road goes ever on and on! (Especially in these books!)