The views from the lookout were unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The guardrails were the only barrier between visitors and a landslide precipice down to the striking clear blue lake. Maybe a few pines stood in the way of a long demise into nothingness, but that didn’t scare me. It didn’t seem to scare anybody. More than anything it was mesmerizing and sparked curiosity.
A crater, formed by the explosion of Mount Mazama some 7,700 years ago, filled up with rainfall and snowfall to create The United States’ deepest lake. And now it sits idly in a park, another smaller volcanic peak has risen out of the water since the explosion and waits for its time to erupt as its ancestor once did.
It was along the main lookout near the visitor center that I saw Varsha Mathur and Mahesh Sardesai, an Indian American couple sitting on the barrier and looking down into the lake, pointing out a squirrel or the miniscule-looking ripples that could be seen in the lake from way above.
The couple from North Carolina were in the middle of a two-week Oregon trip covering Portland, Bend, the coast and Crater Lake.
Mathur, 40, had been to Mount Rushmore with her parents before, and together with Sardesai, 45, had visited the Smoky Mountains and Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, but the outdoors has never been a major part of either of their lives. After the pandemic hit, and their plans to travel abroad were cancelled, they decided to deepen their relationship with nature by slowly ticking off more and more national parks.
“It's been surprisingly wonderful,” Mathur said. “We took things for granted in our backyard, I mean five-hour flight ‘backyard’, but still, it's relatively accessible and we're finally getting to admire it and not put it off until after Asia or after Europe, why not now?”
Accessibility is a big priority for them, not just for the trip to be financially accessible, but also in terms of comfort, they like being able to experience natural wonders without having to camp. The pair, who have been together for seven years and married for five, already have Yellowstone lined up for next year with Sardesai’s parents. They found that even in the remote park there were many options for them to recreate comfortably.
In their eyes it’s not necessary to compromise the comforts of home for an outdoor adventure and they feel it might be what hinders others from going to explore the world.
“It can be a psychological leap to go from living in the city to then camping in the wilderness,” Sardesai said. “Being able to enjoy the experience of the national parks without feeling like you have to do something very different is amazing. We drove here for the day from Bend, which is not even a two-hour drive, then we're going back to Bend where there's craft beer, boutiques and great galleries.”
In terms of minority representation in the parks it’s something they’ve noticed but haven’t been at all bothered by. Just like them, they realize everybody else is there to enjoy the amazingness of their surroundings. People don’t typically go out of their way and into a national park to create a scene or make others uncomfortable.
“Everyone we've encountered whether they work for the Park Service or just next to us in the parking lot has been super friendly, accommodating, talkative and willing to connect for a minute,” Mathur said. “I think the hesitancy is really just fear of the unknown and once you’re here you realize that this is awesome.”
Fear of the unknown is a big driver for many people when it comes to the national parks, and as Sardesai points out, so is a fear of the rural communities that surround them. Notorious for their conservative views and oftentimes anti-minority politics, rural towns can be a big hurdle to overcome.
That was one of the hardest things for me when I was traveling over the summer of 2021. Getting gas in the rural towns surrounding national parks was where my anxiety was at an all-time high, but nothing ever happened. People aren’t usually out to get you, and I think as a minority woman traveling alone it was ingrained in me that I was always in danger. Those stereotypes we have burned into our brains is something that as a community we have to work on taking apart, so that we can feel free and welcomed into any and every space.
Mathur and Sardesai have been traveling all around the world, and for them the best place for everything is their own USA.
“Being raised in different places of the United States it really makes it obvious to you how incredible and unique a place like this is,” Sardesai said.
According to the pair the country has everything they could want, amazing places to ski, kayak, fish, wander through rainforests and whitewater rafting. They believe that if these wonders exist in our country, then we should take full advantage of them, and try to overcome the fear that some stereotypes have instilled in our minds.