Ever climbing

Bruce Hart has long been a lover of the outdoors, but if you’d asked him back in 1973, when he obtained his bachelor’s degree in biology from Chico State, what he wanted to do with his life, his answer would likely have been a lot different from how it turned out. But to see him today, sitting in his comfortable office inside Mountain Sports, one could surmise everything turned out just the way it was supposed to.

Hart bought Mountain Sports from a buddy in 1977. The store, which specializes in outdoor adventure gear for the hiker, skier and climber, was 2 years old and occupied a small space on Main Street next to Tower Records.

“We had about 1,100 square feet,” Hart recalled. “It was not enough space. So we moved down Main Street between Third and Fourth streets.”

Back then, that stretch of Main was a hotbed of retail activity, he said. He nestled into a second-floor space and stayed there for 11 years. Then, in 1988, the “new mall” was built. Until that time, downtown had just about everything people needed, from clothing to gifts to hardware to food—in the form of a grocery store (Gold Country Market) in addition to restaurants and cafés.

A fine-china shop vacated its spot on Third Street, making way for Mountain Sports’ second and final move.

“They saw the writing on the wall; they knew they wouldn’t be able to compete with the malls,” Hart said of the china store. “Downtown was really a core spot for everybody’s needs, with a nice collection of businesses. A lot of them were put out of business by the mall and big stores like Penney’s, Troutmans and Gottschalks.

“Fortunately, my business is a specialty store,” he added. “I’d close my doors before moving into a strip mall.”

Being in Chico’s downtown is part of what makes Mountain Sports the store it is, Hart explained. Having grown up in a very small town, he said he always embraced the idea of local businesses and business owners helping each other. That’s the mentality fueling his focus on customer service, and it’s customer service that has kept many of the downtown shops alive throughout the years, despite competitive prices at big boxes or online.

“I think in many respects, Chicoans are cognizant of the fact that they can come into Mountain Sports and the staff will help them find quality products that fit their needs—so they don’t need to go on the Internet,” Hart said. “As a small, locally owned business, we give people a part of us.”