Back in 2015, I had the chance to visit Mount Sunday—better known to many as the site of Edoras in The Lord of the Rings. The walk to the mountain was quiet and cold, and the trail was scattered with frozen puddles and muddy patches, which made for a fun and unexpected recording opportunity. The ice underfoot had this incredible texture—cracking, shifting, and occasionally shattering in sharp little bursts. I spent a while just recording those sounds, getting close-up audio of the pressure building and releasing across the frozen surfaces.
What made it even better was the total silence around me. There wasn’t a single person in sight, which gave the whole place this eerie calm. It’s rare to find that kind of stillness—and for a field recordist, it’s perfection. I only wish I had a contact mic mic at that time. I think it would’ve captured some beautiful resonance through the ice. But even without it, I walked away with some really unique recordings.
With ten more years of experience and a better ear for detail, I’m hoping to revisit that kind of environment again sometime in the near future. Until then, the crunch of frozen puddles at Mount Sunday still sticks with me.
You can check out the recordings we got that day in the Ice Breaking & Cracking audio library.
