Skirling Pass

The pass runs through the Frostfangs and leads, beyond the Wall, to the source of the Milkwater. Its name comes from the wind, which cuts like a blade and at night sounds like a lament. The path winds upward among peaks scoured by the wind and hidden valleys the sun barely reaches, and aside from a few blades of grass and patches of lichen among the rocks, nothing grows there.

The trail is narrow and steep from end to end, tight enough that it can only be walked single file. A grey stone arch marks its highest point; there the path widens and begins its long descent toward the Milkwater valley. From that height a long, narrow valley comes into view, along with an ice waterfall hundreds of feet high and, below it, a blue lake where the river is born. The sun sets between the twin peaks the rangers call Fist Mountain.

During the Night's Watch expedition beyond the Wall, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont camps at the Fist of the First Men and sends fifteen men, in three groups of five, to find word of Mance Rayder near the sources of the Milkwater. One group follows the river, another climbs the Giant's Stair, and the third, led by Qhorin Halfhand, takes the Skirling Pass.

High on the pass, at its narrowest stretch, Ygritte and Orell keep watch alongside another wildling, sheltered from the wind against a rock wall that lets them look over the gorge below. That same wall lets Jon Snow and his companions crawl unseen until they are right above them.

Jon kills Orell, and Stonesnake kills the other wildling; Ygritte manages to escape. Of the five men Qhorin Halfhand led onto the Skirling Pass, only Jon Snow, now a prisoner of Mance Rayder, and Stonesnake, of whom nothing more is heard, remain.