Close your eyes, please dial into the hands of pure snow, hold it to his lips, and you feel the structure of the watermelon. Now breathe deeply, and you smell of watermelon. Now we can open the eyes ...

If you're currently in the Sierra Nevada in California (USA), then you're in the hands and see a real snow watermelon, which has not only the structure and the smell, but the color and even the taste of watermelon! Here at an altitude of three thousand feet there is a unique wonder of nature.

For millennia, the secret of snow watermelon surprised scientists around the world. Even in the treatises on the nature of Aristotle was marked by this natural phenomenon. It draws on the snow slopes of the local mountain climbers from around the world. Vast expanses of pink snow open by the end of spring. And the mystery, as many might have guessed, lies in the microscopic algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis. Every inch of snow contains millions of microscopic particles, the depth of which can reach 25 centimeters.

Local people sometimes eat the snow, so as to distinguish it from the watermelon, rather watermelon ice cream, is quite difficult. However, some of these algae are poisonous. Not fatally, but welcome them inside may cause diarrhea

In general, the algae themselves in nature - green. Pink, they are only for protection from the strong ultraviolet spring, which melts the snow cover, beneath which are hidden and the whole year algae.
If you are lucky enough to get on the slopes of these mountains, then keep in mind that yellow snow does not smell like lemon, and taste it too should not be