Restoring Water to Karma Bathhouse – Plumbing in Drala Mountain Center’s Control
This year has been an exciting one for renewal and transformation here at Drala Mountain Center. We’ve been proud to bring a great roster of retreats, teachers, and global wisdom teachings to the land this year.
But behind every successful retreat is the infrastructure, supplies, team, and community culture that makes it happen. Done right, the background functioning of a retreat center can be almost invisible. You see the staff and some of what is being done, but the results are clean and hospitable rooms, delicious and nourishing meals, and a practice container that feels supportive and full. How all of those things come to be can be much more complicated than it looks on the surface, particularly when it’s infrastructure that needs a little extra TLC.
Earlier this year Drala Mountain Center was looking for the source of a problem. We had plumbing leaks, but weren’t sure where they were coming from. Naturally the first step had to be finding the leak itself, and then figuring out what our options would be.
When it comes to managing a 600 acre campus, a plumbing leak might not seem like a big deal at first glance. But one of our commitments is to be good stewards of our land and the facilities on it – so it was a big deal to us.
This summer we were able to isolate the leak to the line between our dining hall and the Karma bathhouse. But that was just the start. Between the dining hall and Karma bathhouse is our Zen Garden, not to mention one of the more popular outdoor seating areas at Drala Mountain Center. The line itself was a sizeable pipe, and needed to be in order to provide enough water pressure for the bathhouse. Those would be challenges enough, but there was an even bigger challenge in front of us. Here in the Colorado Mountains you don’t have to dig very deep to hit bedrock. Even if you aren’t truly on bedrock, there are large quartz deposits and other surface stones and boulders that can make for rough going on any digging project at scale.
Enter Drala Mountain Center’s very own excavator.
Drala Mountain Center was able to purchase an excavator this year, adding to the vehicles, tools, and equipment used by our Facilities team every day. The timing was good, and the new excavator was about to prove just how useful it could be. Our facilities crew carefully mapped where they wanted the new plumbing to Karma Bathhouse to go. We decided not to use the old route the existing pipe was on, in part because the old route went directly through our Zen Garden, and would require us to remove and replace the garden any time we needed to repair or upgrade the pipe in the future. Cutting a new route meant getting through boulders, surface rock, and just about every other obstacle you’d expect on a mountain dig. Our facilities crew was ready for the challenge.
Staff and volunteers collaborated, making plans, cutting through rock, clearing the way for the new pipes, and ultimately installing and passing the final pressure tests in early October.
In the meantime, Karma Bathhouse also got a bit of a facelift in the form of a remodel, which is still ongoing in the shower sections. However, the men’s, women’s and non-binary/accessible bathrooms are back up and running now – completing the first sizeable project for our excavator team.
Of course, an excavator is no good on its own. You need a crew that has the skills and experience to use it.
You need supporting staff who can assist with the dig. You need someone able to make a plan of action and stick to it. You need folks who can troubleshoot and address the challenges along the way. Drala Mountain Center has that team, and having them opens a world of opportunities for us in the future.
Not only does having the excavator and a team to use it give Drala Mountain Center more control and more options when it comes to ongoing and future p
lumbing needs, it also fundamentally changes our relationship with the land and some of the challenges of caring for the beautiful, sacred, and still very wild place.
The excavator, combined with our other equipment, including our plow and tractor, give us more options for road maintenance, including creating culverts and drainage systems for long-term durability. It means that we can explore landscaping projects both to beautify the land, and take care of the health and wellbeing of the local ecosystems. As we continue forward with post-fire recovery after the Cameron Peak Fire, we can restore landscapes, create drainage, more.
In terms of human wellbeing, the excavator means better maintenance on underground infrastructure like our plumbing systems. It also means we have more options to make Drala Mountain Center’s landscape safer and more accessible for diverse groups. As our needs change over time, having an excavator gives us more options to meet the moment, protect the land, and expand our usable living and practice areas in new and exciting ways.
Fixing our plumbing leak was the right thing to do as a retreat center, to protect the land, and to maintain our long-term sustainability. But having the tools, experience, and team to do it ourselves is a true transformative moment, and one that opens new doors and windows of possibility for all that Drala Mountain Center can do now and in the future. We are better prepared than ever to hold and continue teaching and passing on the Dharma, the many wisdom traditions of the world, and the sense of community and home that make Drala Mountain Center special.