Customer Reviews

Jeep Trails to Colorado Ghost Towns

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book may have been the first gift my husband ever gave me, so I may be inclined to go easy on it. It is true that the book is outdated and that some of the sites and trails it describes have changed considerably since publication. We also found that the description of how to get to one of the ghost towns was inadequate--we happened on the remains of some buildings eventually, but that was sheer luck; we'd given up on finding the town and were headed back from our trip.
However, the book told us a lot about locations of potential interest, and we've had a lot of fun checking out places we never would have known about otherwise. It's nice to have older pictures to compare to what we see, and Brown offers great summaries of places we may want to learn more about.
I'd definitely recommend this book--just make sure you have supplemental information to avoid frustration while navigating.

I bought this book while on vacation in Colorado. Other reviewers suggest that it is out of date and certainly there are more explicit trail guides to this State but it's a great piece of nostalgia. I love the pictures of flatfender CJs when they were almost new and ghost towns before the weather took away many of the buildings. It sits alongside other vintage Jeep books in my house.

Robert L. Brown is one of the pioneers of the rediscovery and the history of Colorado's Ghost Towns. While this book was written in the mid 60's and is woefully out of date as a current guide, it does offer a unique perspective because of it's age. You will find here photos of the way these towns looked at the time the book was originally published. As a student of Colorado history, I find these invaluable. Comparing the current state of these towns to Brown's photos and historical photos of these towns in their heydey allows you to appreciate their fragility and their rate of decline. Don't buy this book as a guide, but buy it for it's historical perspective.

Bobby Brown . . . in the summer of 1975 Mr. Brown's book was 12 years old, yet the data was still accurate and relevant. The deregulation of Gold in 1974 made a prospector out of me and many others. I was driven to pan tailings ponds, sleuce boxes, and every creek nearby to any minig activity. ...
Every weekend I took my family tent camping to the great Colorado outdoors, using Brown's neat book. We found apothecary bottles, gold, and tons of fun.
Since then, many 4X4 books have been written about jeep trails and Ghost Towns and their info, trails and data are up-to-date and accurate to a fault.
After more than 39 years, how many trails are obliterated? How many ghost towns are gone and how much of the data, four decades old is even accurate, or on the map any longer.
Mr. Brown, his book . . . and me too, are all really old now.
There comes a time when the new must prevail. The old is put aside for up to the minute, on time info. It is, after all, the age of IT, isn't it?
In it's day, Mr. Brown's book was the cat's meow. Yikes! Did I really use that old cliche? See what I mean?
You young people run the world now. Us old timers live for our memories; and Jeep Trails to Colorado Ghost Towns is a really nice memory. (Sigh) Nostalgia, ain't it great?
East Tin Cup, Russleville, Glory Hole, and many more . . . thanks Robert Brown! We love ya.

"Jeep Trails to Colorado Ghost Towns" provides the reader with an exceptional look at Colorado's mining history. The book also gives the reader a chance to go view this history up close by providing maps and instructions on how to access these towns. After spending several summers in the high country of Colorado, I can say that this book is a must. Be prepared...those mountain jeep trails will give you a new meaning of acrophobia!

I love this book because I have traveled to most of the Ghost Towns talked about in this book. Some of the pictures are the same as ones that I photographed while there. I am doing a slide show for my children of the places we visited and it helps me label the pictures for them. It is hard to remember the names of places until I got this book. We were there about 35 years ago and at that time we used the book Stampede to Timberline by Muriel Wolle as a guide. We basically followed the Switzerland Trail and started out from Boulder. We met Jimmy Hubbard at Ward who was a firemen and brakeman on the Denver-RioGrande railroad who told us about the book Switzerland Trail of America which we bought from the author, Forest Crossen.

I have this book and have done 5 "trails" marked in it. All but one actually led me to my selected destination. I am an avid four wheeler with the assistance of my partner we have an up and coming four wheel drive club. This book should be used as a I've got nothing better to do with my day guide only.