The path was more difficult than I had imagined, though the guidebook had warned about it. We hiked steeply and steadily, sometimes losing the trail to wisps of low cloud, under the wet cover of lush greenery. Though it was not hot, I was dripping with sweat, and understood why so many opted to take the shuttle bus to the top. After some twenty minutes, we broke into a clearing so obscured by roiling fog that we could not discern its edges. We paused for a damp breath, I feeling like Gollum come to the world above ground. As we stood uncertain, the slight, refreshing breeze began to reveal shadows. I grew more and more convinced that this was Middle Earth as the snout of a crocodile pushed its way through the fog bank, high above us. Little by little, the breeze exposed ramparts, turrets, and the waterspouts of which the stone crocodile was one. As the sun burned away the fog, the colors, too, began to show: yellows, pinks, and blues like a fantasy castle. Which, of course, it was.