Source: Seth A. McConnell, YourHub
I have seen school buses converted into homes, traveling party vehicles, work places, art studio, and gardens, but Colorado Mountain Club may take the prize for most creative use of an old school bus with their Bouldering Bus.
The bus was gifted to the club in November by Women’s Wilderness Institute, who in turn had acquired the bus from Christin and Ken Bellian, a husband and wife from North Carolina. It was the Bellian’s who painted the 1986 bus and replaced its seats with climbing handholds along the interior walls and ceiling.
The traveling climbing wall features over 600-square feet of climbing space, all of which is most often used for youth education programs. Colorado Mountain Club’s youth education director Holly Barrass told The Denver Post, “This is for groups for which getting to us is really hard. We definitely have a bunch of schools we work with a lot that have never been able to do our climbing program.”
The club made an extra effort to follow up on the promise to reach youth who otherwise might not have access to climbing walls by going to Title I schools in Boulder. Title I schools receive a high percentage of schools from low-income families.
“Reaching Title I schools is one of the key ideas for us and having really good school partnerships where kids are getting that opportunity to climb for the first time,” Barrass said.
The Colorado Mountain Club may not have personally converted the Bouldering Bus, but they have shown it is certainly in good hands.
