This cache is placed in Pace Bend Park, a Travis County Park located approximately 30 miles west of Austin on Lake Travis. The park is open 7 days a week from sunrise to 9pm for day-use visitors with overnight camping available. There is a fee to enter the park. Please be respectful of the posted signs and the other people using the park. This cache is placed in accordance with the guidelines for geocaches by the Travis County Park system.
After recovering from the beginning part of their journey, our heroes leave Lothlorien . Their travels are fraught with dangers and after traveling many roads together, they are split. Now the battle for the Middle Earth really begins. The people of Rohan take refuge at Helm's Deep where they are attacked by Saruman's army. In order to find Helm's Deep, you need to find the Uruk-hai, the bad guys, and King Theoden, the good guy.
Background
In J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fantasy writings, Helm's Deep was a large valley in the north-western Ered Nimrais (White Mountains).
The valley was blocked over its entire width by the natural series of hills called Helm's Dike and behind that lay the fortress of Aglarond or the Hornburg, at the entrance to the Glittering Caves.
Originally the valley was home to a small Gondorian regiment, but after Calenardhon became Rohan it became an encampment of the Rohirrim, where the guards of the Fords of Isen lived.
During the war with the Dunlendings under Wulf, the Rohirrim under King Helm Hammerhand and many of his people sought refuge in the keep, where they held out during the winter of T.A. 2758–2759.
A long causeway wound up to the great gate of the fortress itself. Inside the keep there were stables and an armoury, as well as a great hall in the rear which was dug out of the mountainside. There also was a great tower (the Hornburg) the top of which consisted of the great horn of Helm Hammerhand. The Deep which stood next to the fortress was barred by the long Deeping Wall, which consisted of solid rock except for a small culvert which allowed water from the Deeping Stream to enter; this rendered a fresh supply in sieges of great length. The Deeping Wall itself stood 20 feet tall; it was wide enough for four men to stand side by side. Access to the fortress from within the Deep was made possible by a long stair which led to the Hornburg's rear gate.
During the War of the Ring the fortress guarding Helm's Deep again became the refuge of some of the Rohirrim, now under King Théoden, and the Battle of the Hornburg was fought there.
It was said in a myth that Helms Deep would never fall while men defended it. No enemy had ever breached the Deeping wall, or set foot inside the Hornburg, but in the year T.A. 3019, during the War of the Ring, Saruman's army of Uruk-hai managed to almost overwhelm the defences of the Rohirrim. This was achieved by the orcs using an explosive blast of fire within the culvert which when detonated, destroyed the main defences. The origin of this explosion is unclear and Tolkien denotes it as "Saruman's devilry." In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy this weapon is depicted as gunpowder.