Paleomagnetic studies of magnetic-bearing lacustrine sediments from two late Pleistocene sections (age range from 12,000-23,000 14C years), one at Devlins Park in the Front Range, the other at Triangle Park in the northern end of the Sewatch Range, Colorado, indicate that detrital remanent magnetization of fine-grained (silty clay) sediments at both locations was capable of recording changes in the magnetic field over periods as short as 100-200 years, whereas, coarser grained silts in the Triangle Park section seem to be less efficient recorders of the geomagnetic field. The remanence of the fine-grained sediments contains an apparent inclination error of about 9¿ at both localities. In addition, locally operative depositional and/or postdepositional processes have produced both intrabasinal and interbasinal systematic differences in the remanence records of up to about 30¿ in declination and 10¿ in inclination. Comparison of the direcitonal data from Devlins Park with those from four other broadly contenporaneous North American lake basins reveals that although there are abundant minor and several major discrepancies, there are general similarities in the longer-wavelength features, particularly of declination. The differences in the records are attributable to depositional and postdepositional factors, variable and secondary overprinting, local field differences, sampling techniques, and incorrect stratigraphic correlations. The overall similarity in the records probably reflects the influence of the geomagnetic field. The greatest difficulty in determining the significance of the similarities and differnces between the records from the various lakes is the present lack of precise age and stratigraphic control.