The South Carolina Forest That Looks Like Melted Ice Cream

The photograph above has not been filtered nor Photoshopped. It's a rainbow swamp!

With its sometimes-swampy landscape stippled with soaring cypresses, Congaree National Park in central South Carolina looks like a prehistoric diorama. And occasionally it also resembles a Lisa Frank folder come to life. When conditions are right, standing water appears orangey, blue, and pinky-red—hues usually reserved for garish school supplies or swirls of melted sherbert on a hot day.

Find out the precise conditions that cause this colorful effect and how you can see it yourself at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: National Park Service)