LAMARTINE

NAME: Lamartine COUNTY: Clear Creek ROADS: 4WD GRID: 2 CLIMATE: Snow in Winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Suggest June-October

COMMENTS: A true ghost. There are 2 reasonable routes to the site. You can take the Trail Creek Rd. off I-70 between Idaho Springs and Georgetown. This road goes thru the not-so-ghostly town of Freeland (follow the Gold Mine tour signs). Continue on to the abandoned mine site (and garbage dump) of Bonito. A nasty trail leads on up from Bonito and ends at a small clearing with Ute Creek Rd. on your left. Just below this junction is a meadow--pull in here. As you oull into the meadow, you will see a cabin on your left. This is the upper end of Lamartine. A slightly less nasty road (but still 4WD only) is to take the Ute Creek Rd. directly off CO-103. This road is pretty good at first but deteriorates near the top. You will see the meadow on your left near the top. REMAINS: There is one relatively intact log cabin at the top of the site and a delapidated sheet metal shack at the bottom. In between are only piles of lumber and stone foundations where there were several cabins. Look into the draw that runs along the site...t

The site was a gold mining area mainly from 188-1900. See "Guide to the Ghost Towns and Mining Camps" by Perry Eberhart, pg. 60 & 468. The book mentions a mill there which I did not see in 1998. Forest Service maps show a "Lamartine Tunnel" in the area which I did not find. Submitted by: Harold Frodge

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