Gollum exiting Moria

[ainur]

I keyed in "Gollum Moria" on the search function and found a dozen threads. They all speculate on how Gollum exited Moria and followed the Fellowship into Lorien. He may have passed ahead of them while they tarried in the Chamber of Mazarbul and crossed the bridge and exited the east gate ahead of them, trying to cut them off. He may have followed the orcs after the fall of Gandalf and the Balrog. He may have found an air-shaft to crawl out while all these other things were going on. I didn't find anything that quoted Tolkien on how he got out.

It's true that the Fellowship tarried in Lorien for quite some time, but Gollum was there the very first night that they were. He tried to approach Frodo as he slept in the tree, but was scared off by Haldir and the other Lorien elves. However he got out, he reached the borders of Lorien approximately the same time as the orcs that pursued the Fellowship.