Skiing with no power (luz)

The power gods of Argentina struck again on Friday. We were expecting to have a good day of powder but after the 2nd run we ended up stuck on the lift for 1 hour. It is not a good feeling when the lift stops and you glance around the mountain and notice that all lifts have stopped.

During the next 1 hour other lifts were slowly unloaded but we were still stranded high and cold. We had a few stop and starts with some reverse action but not much progress. After 60 minutes the mountain manager found some power and our chair was slowly unloaded.

Argentina is currently going through a large energy crisis due to the cold winter and drought (lack of water in reservoirs) last year. The majority of power is generated by hydro so this leads to power outages. The government is asking people to conserve, but after 4 weeks we have only seen 1 example of conservation. This was at the supermarket today when only 1/2 of the lights were being used.

According to the ski area the power came back on so we decided to take a few more powder runs. This was a mistake because the power cut again. When the e-brake slammed on the chair dropped 10 feet and made some crazy noises. 10 minutes later we skied down for good and decided to avoid the slopes on Saturday.