Stair of the Hold

Southward of Edoras, the long valley of Harrowdale ran into the White Mountains towards the peak known as the Starkhorn. The valley had steep sides, and in the east a cliff rose up to a flat open space far above the valley floor. In the distant past Men had come to that cliff-top field and raised earthworks and standing stones of forgotten purposes. To reach this mysterious place, they created a roadway that ran up the cliff-face, winding backward and forward as it climbed. At each turn of the road they placed a carved figure, a Púkel-man, said to represent one of the Drúedain who had at one time been familiar along the northern fringes of the mountains. At the top of the cliff, the road turned straight eastward, and ran through a cutting in the rock to emerge onto the wide space beyond.

By the time Rohan was founded in the later Third Age, the makers of this strange place and its Stair had long been forgotten, but the hold was rediscovered by King Brego, and the Rohirrim saw its defensive potential. In their language, they named the place the Hold of Dunharrow, the 'hillside temple' (though none knew for sure if that were its original purpose). The great winding road - wide enough for wagons to pass up the cliff - was known as the Stair of the Hold, and it continued in use by the Men of Rohan throughout the history of their realm.

From the point where the Stair of the Hold opened onto the Firienfeld, as the Rohirrim named the high field, the makers of Dunharrow had raised a line of standing stones that led onward to the east, marking the way to the Dwimorberg and its Dark Door. In Rohan's early days, Brego's son Baldor had climbed the Stair and attempted the Paths of the Dead, never to be seen again. More than four centuries would pass before Aragorn and his companions braved the same journey and successfully passed from the Stair into the Haunted Mountain, to emerge at the end of the long dark road on the southern side of the White Mountains.