White fang skoolie
Features
White Fang was a Skoolie designed and built by Cyn (Cynthia) Currie. A 1994 BlueBird Mini with a 5.9L 12 Valve Diesel Cummins engine and Allison transmission. She flat tows my Subaru Impreza (manual transmission) and has a motorcycle carrier on the front for my Yamaha XT250 duel sport. Her top speed on a flat straight away is about 55mph and she gets around 11mpg even when wet and towing the Impreza.
25ft bumper to bumper with 21 internal feet of livable cabin space. She is 100% off grid with 400 Watts of solar charging AGM 600Ah batteries that run all the house DC/AC needs. Including a 95L Dometic super efficient DC duel zone refrigerator/freezer. Propain/electric on demand water heater. And even a Cubic Mini wood burning stove. There is 6ft of live edge counter top cut from a 200 year old Juniper from New Mexico, sink is antique hammered copper. Cedar skins the ceiling and continues down the walls of the skoolie to the windowsills.
Hello, my name is Cynthia Currie and I travel the Western United States in a school bus I designed and built myself over two months in 2018 with my wolf dog, Roan. With a back ground and degree in mechanical and electrical engineering the skoolie was an art project and dream of mine for over a decade. I had conceptually designed multiple container homes and been working on layouts for sprinter vans in the years leading up to the skoolie build. White Fang is a work of livable art and it brings me immense amounts of joy to live and travel in her.
I own and operate a traveling paragliding school Raven Wolf Sky Sports that is partially based in Monterey California during the summer months when its too hot to live in a skoolie inland. In the fall you can find us in and around Moab Utah flying, canyoneering and rock climbing. Winters you can usually find us skiing and flying in the backcountry of the Cascades and where ever the snow is good.
On Tuesday September 13, 2022 at approximately 3pm in the afternoon I lost my air brakes on the back side of the 120 (Tioga Pass) near Yosemite, California. I narrowly escaped with my life.
Short version: a few miles down the main downgrade of the eastern side of the Tioga Pass I lost pressure in the airbrakes. There was still back pressure in the peddle, and my air pressure gauge was showing 100 + psi so I was confused as to why the brakes were barely engaging. I used the engine in a low gear as best I could over the next few miles, trying multiple times to pull over onto narrow paved over looks. Luckily I had only accelerated from 35 to 45 ish but I rounded a turn on 2 wheels of the bus. Knowing this was my last chance, I aimed for the dirt of a larger overlook. In a last ditch effort to slow down I used both feet on the break peddle causing the air breaks to lose enough pressure to emergency lock up. I jackknifed with the Subaru. Flipped the bus and Subaru onto the driver side. The friction of the jackknifed car and it being on its side slowed me down enough to that I stopped right before the cliff. The force of the accident and roll caused the car to completely sever the tow connection from the bus ripping steal and iron of the hitch and safety chain!
I have no idea how I did not die. I can say that although this was my worst fear, this exact scenario is why I went with a Skoolie. School buses are built STRONG, reenforced steel and iron. The frame is extra tough to protect children in case of emergency. That is how Roan and I survived with minimal injuries. He this been a ‘normal’ RV it would have crunched and collapsed like a tin can. Even with rolling and sliding on its side for at least 50 if not 100ft there was minimal disformation in the frame. The timber structure I built on the inside did not fair as well, unfortunately.
Subaru totaled
Bus totaled
Luckily I am insured with State Farm. But I don’t know how it’s going to work with the bus.
I have gone over the Sierra Dozens of times in the last 4 years with the bus towing the Subaru…. In the snow even. I predominantly travel in the fall and winter months, chasing the snow and good flying conditions. White Fang has been over countless mountain passes from Canada to Mexico… from Big Sur, California to the Rockie Mountains of, Colorado. She has never had any brake issues prior to this. In February of this year 2022 I had some engine troubles and during that time I had the mechanic work on the brakes along with all the normal maintenance of owning a vehicle (oil change, flush the radiator, and more). This is the first trip, less than 1,000 miles since the service.
I took lessons on how to drive and operate the school bus and air brakes before and during the build process in 2018/2019 and I have to say I would HIGHLY recommend that if you own and operate a Skoolie. It saved my life and that of the motorcyclist. I would also recommend regular maintenance on your brakes and vehicle in general, which I do at least once if not twice a year. If I could go back I would also educate myself of adjusting my brakes and understanding that system better. Make sure you know and trust the mechanic(s) working on your vehicle.
In closing I am so grateful for my friends and family for the support I have been receiving.
Help Rebuild White Fang 2.0 - Go Fund Me
Update : December 2022
With the help of State Farm and the GoFundMe created by Maeve and Jen I have purchased a Dodge Ram 3500 Turbo diesel 4x4 truck and a Lance Squire Cab over. I started remodeling the cabover in December of 2022, its been a different kind adventure remodeling an already satisfactory system. Knocking some of the walls out and replacing all of the appliances.
Having to integrate my salvaged electrical system with an already installed 1994 electrical system. It has been a huge learning process! Everything in the 90s and before was AC powered and charged, now a days you can pretty much get everything you need to charge on a USB (DC) port so I had to rip out all but two of the 8 of the AC outlets and replace them with DC outlets or just leave it null as I only really need 8 USB charging ports at any time and they come on a strip of 4 to an outlet. Replacing all the lighting with LED. Added an inverter and much more capacity and also 400 watts of solar on the roof.
All of the surfaces in the truck camper have been replaced with old growth Cedar from the Sierra. I have live edge Cedar counter tops, table and all cedar cupboard doors. I took my design of the original White Fang Skoolie, the warm wood cabin vib and made it better and more artistic.
