Bring Your Own Power

Work, Play, Sleep

In Alma, Colorado—the highest incorporated town in the United States—life moves at a different altitude. For Jacob, who splits his time between managing a bike shop and cleaning houses, the rhythm of the week is summed up in three words: work, play, sleep. Between jobs, he slips into mountain biking, canoeing, and photography. His motto, “work hard, play hard”, isn’t a slogan but a practice. And in the thin air of the Rockies, every ounce of preparation matters.

Jacob has always leaned toward self-reliance, a habit forged in Vermont, where his childhood was spent on dirt roads and long distances from grocery stores. “To have fun, you play in the woods,” he recalls. That love of the outdoors has never left. It’s why he’s equally at home pedaling down rocky switchbacks or chopping wood for the winter stove. And now, it’s why a box-shaped orange-and-black device sits quietly at the center of his days: the Jackery Explorer 1000 Plus.

The Breaking Point

For years, Jacob had resisted the expense of a portable power station. “I wanted one forever, but I couldn’t justify it,” he admits. That changed when he and his partner moved into a grid-connected house. Within four days, the power went out twice. The second outage spoiled their food, and something in Jacob snapped.

“I just wanted not to worry about power anymore,” he says. The next morning, he ordered a Jackery Explorer 1000 Plus. When it arrived, he felt what he describes as peace of mind. Relief came in the form of kilowatt-hours, humming quietly in the corner, ready to keep the fridge cold and the PlayStation alive.

BYOP: Bring Your Own Power

The first night Jacob brought his Jackery to his brother’s off-grid home, he introduced a new phrase: BYOP—Bring Your Own Power. It was a playful twist on the familiar BYOB (Bring Your Own Beer). “I walked in and said, ‘Forget the beer—this time it's the power I’m bringing,’” Jacob recalls. The joke made everyone laugh, but beneath the humor was a truth they all understood: in a house where electricity is scarce, showing up with extra power is no small thing.

For that household, an eccentric three-story structure attached to an 1800s cabin, powered by aging solar panels and an unreliable gas generator, Jacob’s Jackery was a small miracle. On cloudy nights, he plugs in the fridge, the oven, even the TV for movie night. “It takes the burden off their system,” he explains. “It’s just enough to carry them through the morning without firing up the generator.”

The MVP of the Campsite

Off the mountain and into the woods, the Jackery becomes something else entirely: the heartbeat of a campsite. Jacob and his partner often camp weekly, seeking out dispersed sites as far from pavement as possible. For them, the Jackery keeps cameras, lights, laptops, and speakers alive for days on end.

On a recent group trip, twelve people gathered in the forest. By the second night, Jacob’s Jackery was powering everyone’s devices—and then a full DJ setup with massive speakers. “It was the MVP of the weekend,” he laughs. By Sunday, it still had power to spare.

Photography in the Wild

Photography has been Jacob’s quiet obsession since he was four, when he took his first pictures at a wedding—shots that captured only the waistlines of adults towering above him. Over the years, the hobby has matured into a serious pursuit. Wildlife remains his favorite subject, though he admits “it’s easier said than done.”

Jackery, in his words, “reshaped and accelerated my goals.” Now he can camp longer, hike deeper, and wait for the shot that demands patience. He dreams of solar panels and extra battery packs to go entirely off-grid on photography trips. “To get the best wildlife shots, you need to be out there for days,” he says. “Now, that’s possible.”

Numbers That Matter

Jacob is quick to translate Jackery's presence into data. “I had the fridge, oven, water pump, TV, internet, and lights all running. It took me six hours, but after four hours I still had nearly forty percent left.” The wattage-tracking app surprised him with how conservative his estimates had been.

It’s not just numbers, though—it’s longevity. “If you use it a couple times a week, it can last ten years. If not, maybe thirty,” he says. That sense of durability, paired with features like quiet charging and battery-protection settings, gives him confidence to plan not just weekends but futures.

A Thrift-Store Philosophy

Part of what drew Jacob to a refurbished model wasn’t only affordability but principle. “Every small thing counts,” he says, recalling his days on a high school environmental action team. He still buys most of his clothes from thrift stores and gravitates toward used gear when he can. “It’s economics, but it’s also mindset. The smallest choices matter.”

In this way, Jackery doesn’t just power his devices; it affirms his values. To him, energy independence is tied to environmental responsibility—solar panels instead of gas generators, batteries instead of waste. “The planet will outlast us,” he says. “But we have to take care of it.”

Looking Ten Years Ahead

When asked what he might say to himself a decade from now, Jacob pauses. “Good job for working hard and chasing what you want,” he answers at last. By then, he hopes to be a part-time wildlife photographer, traveling deeper into wilderness with camera, canoe, and battery packs in tow.

And if anyone hesitates about buying a Jackery, he has a simple response: do it. “It’s really an investment,” he insists. “It changes the way you live, camp, and think about power. It makes life easier. And it lasts.”

The Quiet Revolution

At altitude, life is measured differently: by snowstorms, outages, the weight of chopped wood stacked for winter. For Jacob, the Jackery is not a gadget but a tool of survival and freedom, one that moves fluidly from living room to campsite, from photography trip to cleaning job.

It is, in his words, peace of mind. It is also a quiet revolution—an orange box of possibility—one that lets him bring his own power into the mountains, and into the life he’s building one trip, one photo, and one charge at a time.