In the Land of Mordor

I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan and a movie fanatic. I love visiting places that have been filmed in movies and learning little trivia about films. Many scenes from LOTR was filmed in the Tongariro National Park. Mt. Doom from Mordor was made to resemble Mt. Ngauruhoe (as seen below).

Mt. Ngauruhoe (Mt. Doom)

Scenes from Mordor were also filmed on Mt. Ruapehu.

The Grand Chateau is where the cast and crew stayed during their weeks of filming.

(I forgot to take my own picture of the Grand Chateau, so this one is from Google. I'll take my own the next time we go back down there.)

Climbing around Mordor.

The barren wasteland of Mordor below us.

For some crazy reason I wanted to climb to the top to see what was on the other side.

Sometimes we were literally climbing up the hill on all fours. I felt like Sam & Frodo climbing up Mt. Doom, except without the looming black clouds above and lava spewing everywhere.

A view of Mt. Ngauruhoe from the top.

The land below.

The top of Mt. Ruapehu.

Another view from the top. As you can see we climbed a long ways up.

A colorful sunset on our drive home. It was much more brilliant in real life.