Your Favorite Little Outdoor Store Turns 30
High Altitude has been getting Cloudcroft outside since 1996. Here’s how a 200-square-foot bike shop became a Burro Avenue institution.
The old rock building is a landmark in the middle of Burro.
Step inside, and it’s alive, packed to the brim with camping gear, clothes, shoes, cheeky gifts, and something for everyone.
High Altitude opened in 1996 in a modest 200-square-foot room in this same building. This May, the shop marked its 30th anniversary. Owner and founder Matt Willett and buyer and right-hand woman Bri Jonnes tell the story of this milestone.
And what comes next.
A Hole in the Wall, Literally
Willett and co-founder Matt Preslar had planned to rent the back building that High Altitude’s bike shop now occupies. When that deal fell through, their landlord, former mayor, and local legend, Michael Nivison, who with his then-wife, Peaches, ran Sleepy Eye Trading Co. in the adjacent space, improvised.
“He actually got a saw, a big concrete saw, cut the hole in the side of the building where those two doors are on the boutique,” Willett said. “And rented us that boutique for like 200 bucks a month.”
Mountain biking was booming, and the shop leaned into it, building trail knowledge, hosting races and becoming the de facto experts for anyone who wanted to know where to ride, hike, or find a pair of gloves for an unexpected snowstorm.
“We kind of just by default became the hub for information on trails and outdoor activities. There was no other place… the forest service station was closed on weekends.” Willett said. “This is where you’re going to go to find out where to hike or bike or whatever it may be.”
When the Nivisons eventually wound down, Willett took over the full space, adding $600 a month in rent.
“I was super scared,” he said. “We were going to help them sell out all their stuff and give them money for that, and then we would eventually just replace it with our stuff.”
That inventory included winter wear: gloves, snow boots, and the necessary items tourists showed up needing. A footwear line followed. The boutique, which became his late wife Tracey’s domain after a trip to Ecuador yielded a load of sweaters and handmade goods, gave the shop a second identity.
High Altitude was no longer just a bike shop.
The High Altitude Classic
In the shop’s second year, Willett and Preslar took over a local mountain bike race, renamed it the High Altitude Classic, and made it their own. The goal, Willett said, was never commercial.
“My goal back then — that was like ‘97 — was just to make this town cool,” he said. “When I graduated, everybody from my class bailed out of here. We started this shop together. Our thing was, we just need to make Cloudcroft cool.”
The race became a fixture and evidence that the mountain offered more than a ski weekend.
It also helped establish the shop as the kind of place that didn’t just sell outdoor gear but genuinely participated in outdoor culture. That distinction has only sharpened over the years.
The Art of the Buy
“We are not conventional at all in the way that we buy or budget or run anything,” Willett said.
Buyer and manager Bri Jonnes came on board Christmas of 2009 and has since reshaped almost every brand on the floor. Today, that roster includes Patagonia, Hoka, Chaco, Columbia, Cotopaxi, Sendero, Vuori, Yeti, Kuhl, Kelty, and a rotating cast of boutique lines that keep the shop feeling fresh without losing its functional core.
“High Altitude was always my favorite little store,” Jonnes said. “I would come in and shop when I was young, and Tracey would pull stuff for my mom to come back and purchase later.”
Jonnes, who grew up in Cloudcroft and left for New Mexico State University and later Colorado, had never worked retail when she arrived.
Her early push to land Chaco sandals, a brand that was then out of reach for a shop of their size, set the template. A connection through a Ruidoso outfitter got her a meeting with the Merrell sales rep, who vouched for the store.
“He promised them that we were good people, and it had nothing to do with business,” she said. “It was all about the people you want to deal with.”
That relational approach has defined the shop’s brand roster ever since. When Columbia dropped hundreds of small accounts several years ago, Jonnes made calls and kept theirs. When she attends the market, at times with her daughters in tow, she writes orders on the spot at the line, no lengthy rep presentations, no wasted time.
“We’re not going to waste the rep’s time showing us every shoe they make,” Willett said. “Bri just knows what she wants. I trust what she does.”
The shop carries what Jonnes and Willett actually use and stand behind. When a Hoka model didn’t perform, they said so and put it on sale.
Willett is plain about what Jonnes contributes. “Almost every brand that we have now is because of Bri,” he said. “It has nothing to do with me at all.”
“She’s a shopaholic,” he grinned.
Making Cloudcroft Cool
Above the countertop, you’ll see papers with goofy illustrations of Ski Cloudcroft and the local parks, populated with dead flies and bugs from the window. These are relics of an era when Cloudcroft’s slow season gave you time to kill when you worked in retail. Now, weekenders pack Burro year-round.
High Altitude’s history tracks closely with that shift. Cloudcroft’s transformation from a seasonal escape built around ski weekends into something more layered: a running community, a music scene, a destination for people who want to be outside doing something challenging.
Jonnes, who had lived in Summit County, Colorado, and returned with a sense of what mountain towns could be, co-organized Tour de Franzia, a costumed, wine-boxed bike ride through the village that eventually drew well over 100 riders. Along with her friends, she launched the Badass Mountain Music Festival, known as BAMM.
“The connections that were made in the shop kind of led to everything else,” she said. “Oh, we can do this. And this guy’s like, yeah, I have a stage, tell me when.”
Willett is now a village trustee, and he and Jonnes serve on the village Parks and Recreation advisory board, where the current focus is building out Elevation Park as a venue for regular outdoor events and community gatherings.
Willett traces the shift in the village’s identity to a generational change in who shows up and why. He grew up here, worked as a hotshot, a ski bum, and ran the ice rink. ”When I was in my early 20s, it was literally a drinking town,” he said. “I’m glad to see it’s gone more this direction.”
He also sees the work as stewardship for the dark sky, the forest, the trails. He is particularly vocal about off-highway vehicle use in what he describes as a fragile, small ecosystem.
“It’s all our land,” he said. “If you’re a visitor here, you need to treat it like you live here. It’s important to keep the charm of Cloudcroft.”
“Being a dark skies destination…it’s not about the money. It’s about I want my kids to see the stars.” — Matt Willett
What Comes Next
“I am so grateful to have such an amazing staff, currently and through the years, and I am thankful for the years of community support,” Willett said.
Thirty years in, the question of succession hovers without urgency. Neither Willett nor Jonnes is ready to answer it, and they seem content with that.
“As long as Bri’s here, I’m here,” Willett said.
Jonnes laughed. “I’m like, not without you.”
“Bri and I are gonna exit stage left together,” he said.
Until then, the shop on Burro keeps doing what it’s done since a concrete saw cut the first door, getting people outside, outfitted, and pointed in the right direction.
High Altitude is located on the corner of Burro and Little Glorieta Avenues. The bike shop is located behind the flagship store. Connect online at HighAltitudeNM.com
VIDEO: Matt Willett Reflects on 30 Years of High Altitude
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