Kharis didn’t really know what backcountry search and rescue was, other than what she saw on TV. Then in 2019, she attended a leadership development class through the Denver Community Leadership Forum, which included a week of Outward Bound, and she met a member of Douglas County Search and Rescue.
“He told a story of some of the challenges of being on a backcountry SAR team, but he ended by describing a feeling of accomplishment that intrigued me,” she says now. “I went home and Googled teams near me, and that’s when I found Alpine Rescue Team (ART).”
Kharis had always had a busy career in the government and nonprofit sectors, and she was finally at a point where she felt like she could make some space for volunteering. She showed up to some of ART’s Wednesday night training sessions and found herself extraordinarily comfortable around the members, despite being an introvert. “Sometimes, I had no idea what they were talking about, but they were so warm and welcoming that I wanted to be part of the team. I wanted to be surrounded by people who care so much.”
After she finished ART’s extensive new member training program and became field active, Kharis’ first incident was a body recovery for an 18-year-old climber. (You can read about it here, in a moving story from Kharis’ teammate Hannah.) “I was so excited at first,” she says. “And then I went from elation to sadness. But I knew it was important for us to bring her home to her family. It’s one of the most important things we do.”
Kharis became ART’s board president after only three years on the team. She was ART’s first female president since 1982. “More women need to start leading in this space,” she says. “And the only way to do that is to say, ‘Yes, I can do this.” Kharis continues to say yes in her professional life too, and is preparing to run for Denver’s elected auditor position in 2027.
Hannah and Kharis were new member class “besties,” and after Hannah moved from ART to Lake County Search and Rescue, they kept in touch. They would often chat about the vast differences between the larger, busier teams that had access to Front Range community resources and the smaller, more remote teams like LCSAR. After teaching a class on nonprofit governance at CSAR’s SARCon one year, Kharis began to think about how she might help the smaller, less resourced teams across the state level the playing field. Joining CSAR’s board of directors seemed like a good way to start.
