Volunteer Spotlight: Power Duo -
Uwe Sartori & Ken Yaphe
Uwe joined the CMC in 2005 and started volunteering in 2007 as a Pikes Peak Group Trip Leader. In 2009, he moved to the Denver Group. During his time with the club, he has taken numerous classes, instructed and directed schools, and served on several committees. After 8 years as an AIARE instructor for the Denver AIARE School, he will become a Co-Director with Ken in October. He is the current Chair of the Backpacking Committee and a Senior Instructor in the TCS Alpine Climbing School. When asked what he likes most about his time and experiences in the CMC, he points to the members that make up the CMC community. He is a chill, small-time peak bagger, state high pointer, amateur mountaineer, improving BC skier, bit player on ice and rock, and has at least one more expedition in his future - Mt. Logan perhaps? Creating outdoor adventures all year long is Uwe's good fortune. Sharing many of those adventures with CMC members is his delight. He likes to quip, “In Colorado you never stop doing the outdoors; just changing gear." For him, Nature is Zen.
Although Ken originally joined the club way back in the 1990s to take WTS at the encouragement of a former coworker, it was his more recent enrollment in 2013 when his interest and involvement in the Club really took off. As many Club members have experienced, his original interest was piqued during his journey to complete the 14ers. Once he had most of the “easier” summits bagged and started exploring more difficult and exposed routes, he decided a little bit of education was probably in order. He enrolled in the Alpine Scrambling Course-- what he now refers to as his “gateway drug” to the rest of what the Club had to offer. Thoroughly enjoying the course and the notion of “scrambling”, he offered to help instruct while completing Basic Mountaineering School (or what you kids today refer to as ACS). From there he continued taking courses to increase his confidence in the backcountry while also expanding the boundaries of available terrain now open to him based on the skills acquired in class. Currently, in addition to co-leading Denver AIARE school, he occasionally instructs a variety of courses including rock climbing, rescue, Alpine Climbing School, and most recently Backcountry Incident Management. He believes we are truly blessed to be living in Colorado with relatively easy access to the backcountry playground—even more so because we have this cohort of generous mentors, volunteers, and employees we call the Colorado Mountain Club. Last year, when asked to share a “fun fact” about himself when writing up a trip leader profile, his answer was and still is, “everything I’ve done since joining the CMC.”