This past weekend, YouSolar founder and CEO Arnold Leitner took his kids and their two friends skiing into the Sierra Nevada. The kids skied at the family-owned Sugar Bowl resort while Arnold worked at the Heidelmann Lodge, a quaint group lodge owned by the Nature Friends.

Then, on Presidents Day, another storm hit the Sierras. Power lines swayed and touched, sending a bright flash chasing down the line. Then the power was out. Lifts stopped. The Bud Light sign over the bar flickered one last time.

Decamping from Heidelmann Lodge. The 2003 Passat of Founder and CEO Arnold Leitner, packed and ready to leave.

At first, a power outage in a snowed-in mountain lodge can be romantic. We stoked the fireplace. But it cannot heat a lodge that sleeps a hundred skiers and alpinists.

The Nature Friends are a hardy bunch, but they also like to cook. The 30-foot-long oil-fired cast oven stove in the kitchen has an electric pump. Industrial fridges in the basement store the food. The small vintage generator initially did not start and then burned oil like a lantern. Eventually, it was time to turn it off.

Meanwhile, an equally hardy employee of the local utility, PG&E, snowshoed up and down the power line with a literal 10-foot pole over his shoulder to find the cause of the outage. No luck.

By the following day, it was time to decamp. Kids can go without food and heat, but having no internet is another matter. With this, the ski trip was cut short, and the 2003 Passat of the founder and CEO was packed.

Many Nature Friends know what Arnold Leitner does when he is not skiing, and the members begin to lean into him. “Demo unit?” “Discount.” “Donation!” “The PowerBloc does not burn oil.” “Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

We hope that one day soon, the Heidelmann Lodge will have a PowerBloc®, and the PG&E employees can ski for fun and not snowshoe for work.

The power came back later in the day. Kudos to the PG&E employee, his snowshoes, and the 10-foot pole.