[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Rhod the Red

Plus the High Pass route would make them take longer, if you look at the distance. Maybe a few weeks.

Originally Posted by JennyHallu

While the Pass itself might not have been closed, to travel south from there would have required passing dangerously close to Dol Guldur, an obstacle of the caliber of Minas Morgul.

I have seen these arguments presented before and don't really hold with them.

The High Pass was more or less on the same latitude as Rivendell and so would not have involved much of a greater distance than taking the Redhorn Pass (as was originally intended). It would take them slightly further north, but not by much. And the marginally greater distance is balanced by the fact that (as indicated in the quote I gave above), the country was much more barren, and the going therefore much slower, west of the mountains than east.

As for Dol Guldur, the Fellowship could have avoided coming too close by staying west of the Anduin, near to the Misty Mountains. And, in any event, by the time that they came anywhere near Dol Guldur, they would almost be within Lothlorien.

Originally Posted by JennyHallu

So take a pass known to be the haunt of Goblins? Wasn't it somewhere mentioned that the activities of the orcs in the pass had increased since TH?

No more so than elsewhere in the Misty Mountains. It is mentioned somewhere (The Council of Elrond, possibly) that, in the years following the Quest of Erebor, the Beornings took responsibility for guarding the High Pass and also the main crossing point over the Anduin (and that they charged a toll for doing so). The route was quite well-travelled and would probably have provided the safest passage across the mountains.

So the main reason for not taking the High Pass would appear to be that it would take the Fellowship though more densely populated country which, although nominally safer, would give rise to a greater risk of being spotted by Sauron's spies.