how tall are the misty mountains?

I was watching the movies recently, but this is just as good as a book-question as a movie-question. How tall are the misty mountains supposed to be? i am thinking altitude, latitude, climate, where's the tree-limit... how far did they go? It i skida a follow up to when i was wondering how far and fast they actually ran (there is a good thourough thread here too if one cares to search a bit)

happy easter!

{{Tolkien based them on the Alps- so thats a reasonable guide- book wise Boromir advises them to gather firewood while they can before they go above the tree line, so that seems much the same as well. }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{Tolkien based them on the Alps- so thats a reasonable guide- book wise Boromir advises them to gather firewood while they can before they go above the tree line, so that seems much the same as well.  }}

but how tall exactly?

{{As far as I am aware Tolkien never said. He based them on his memories of the Grindelwald region, he was there in 1911 - the Alps at that point are 12,000ft.
According to wiki the Alps has over 100 peaks over 13,000ft and Mont Blanc is 15,781ft

The descriptions in the book pretty much match up to a range very similar to the Alps so I think we can take the max peak height to be in about the same sort of span- 10,000-16,000ft }}}

Yeah I don't know how 'exactly' can apply to a mountain range. 10,000 feet sounds low for a pass, though, unless you are talking about the ends of the range. Though come to think of it the pass in the Hobbit sounds like it could be 10,000 feet, but Caradhras 'feels' more like 12,000 feet. Maybe it's in my own head, but I also get the feeling these passes go along the sides of mountains rather than along valley floors.

{{Out of curiousity I put those Alps numbers into my landscape generator and made some alp like mountains- looks about right for the Misty Mountains I reckon }}

{{out of further curiousity- if the Misty Mountains were not formed like the Alps but by glacial movement instead they'd look more like this}}

10,000 feet seems low for a pass Halfy? That's pretty darn high in my opinion!

Out of curiosity Petty, what would they look like if they were formed by Tulkas wrestling a bunch of dragons? I assume there's a knob for that in your simulator as well, naturally!

{{Ill say it is! The pass through the mountain range closest to me is  only 803 ft above sea level, the the average height of the range it passes through is about 1,500ft - Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in Scotland is only 4412.73ft

And as for Tulkas- mmm rather more fantastical I fancy- I will see what I can do but no promises as sadly, no, it doesn't seem to have a setting for that    }}}}}

{{Tulkas wrestling a bunch of dragons version! }}

What I mean by 10,000 feet being low for a pass is that Tolkien makes these out to be rather perilous, and people on foot don't seem to go through anywhere except these very few passes that are mentioned. If I was trying to go in secret I'd avoid easy passes and take off between any other likely set of peaks. Especially if you are on foot and have a ranger with you. But Tolkien seems to imply this is well nigh impossible. Hence I infer that there's nowhere as low as 10,000 feet or folks would be hopping back and forth over the Misty Mountains all over the place.

I've done the Inca Trail in the Andes. One of the "passes" was 14,000 feet, and those buggers built steps going over it. I doubt if anything below 11,000 feet was even called a pass - more like a bump in the road.

I believe that the Andes and the Alps must be rather different in terms of weather and the like. That is, I believe 14,000 feet in the Andes is different than 14,000 feet in the Alps.

Perhaps the Misty Mountains are so called because of the bad weather around them.

I approve of the landscape Petty! Needs more dragon skeletons though! Adjust the setting for dragon skeletons please.

Forest Shepherd wrote:
I approve of the landscape Petty! Needs more dragon skeletons though! Adjust the setting for dragon skeletons please.

halfwise wrote:

Forest Shepherd wrote:
I approve of the landscape Petty! Needs more dragon skeletons though! Adjust the setting for dragon skeletons please.