The Little Narrows, Poudre Canyon
CO Highway 14, Poudre Canyon, CO
Poudre Canyon, CO
A place on the Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway where the canyon walls close in and the road and the whitewater river run side by side through a narrow gorge, on the long climb toward Cameron Pass.
West of Fort Collins, Colorado Highway 14 turns off the plains and begins to climb beside the Cache la Poudre River, and before long the canyon draws tight. At the narrows, the rock walls press in until road and river share the same slim corridor, the pavement curling along one side while the whitewater churns past just feet away on the other. It is one of the signature moments of the Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway, a place where a simple drive turns genuinely dramatic.
The Poudre is the only river in Colorado protected as a National Wild and Scenic River, and in the narrows it shows why: fast, loud, and framed by high walls of ancient rock. Pull over at one of the roadside turnouts and the canyon does the rest, the sound of the rapids filling the gorge and the sheer stone rising straight up on either hand.
What Guests Love
- The road and a wild whitewater river squeezing through the same tight gorge
- Towering canyon walls of pink and gray rock right at the roadside
- Colorado's only federally designated Wild and Scenic river
- Pullouts for watching kayakers, casting a line, or just the rushing water
Worth Knowing
- This is a driving destination along Highway 14, so use the marked pullouts rather than stopping in the narrow travel lanes
- The river runs high and fierce with snowmelt in late spring and early summer, a powerful sight but dangerous water
- The canyon climbs from the plains toward 10,000-foot Cameron Pass, so weather and temperatures change fast with elevation
- Watch for bighorn sheep on the canyon walls and slow-moving traffic and cyclists on the winding road
Details
Poudre Canyon, CO
Learn about The Little Narrows, Poudre Canyon
Where the canyon squeezes
For much of its length the Poudre canyon is broad enough for a river, a road, and a strip of pine forest between them. At the narrows that room disappears. The walls close to a slot barely wide enough for the highway and the river, and the two run together through the gap, the pavement carved into the rock on one side and the whitewater surging along the other.
The effect is thrilling from behind the windshield and better still from a pullout on foot, where you can feel the canyon amplify the roar of the water. These pinched sections have long been landmarks on the drive up the canyon, natural gateways where travelers know they have truly left the plains behind.
A wild and scenic river
The Cache la Poudre is Colorado's only National Wild and Scenic River, a designation reserved for waterways kept in a free-flowing, natural state. Fed by the high snows of the Rockies, it runs cold, clear, and strong, and in the narrows its full force is on display. In late spring and early summer, snowmelt turns the river into a torrent of standing waves that draws kayakers and rafters from across the region.
That wildness is the river's character all year. The Poudre is prized for its trout fishing in the calmer reaches, its whitewater in the steep ones, and its untamed feel throughout, a mountain river that has never been dammed along this stretch and behaves like it.
The drive up the byway
The narrows are one act in a much longer show. The Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway follows Highway 14 for around a hundred miles, climbing from the canyon mouth near Fort Collins all the way over Cameron Pass at nearly 10,000 feet and down into the wide, mountain-ringed basin of North Park beyond.
Along the way the drive passes granite cliffs, riverside pullouts, national forest campgrounds, and stands of aspen that blaze gold in autumn, with good chances of spotting bighorn sheep on the rocks and moose in the willows higher up. The narrows make a natural place to stop and take the canyon in, a dramatic pause on one of northern Colorado's finest mountain drives.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Poudre Canyon
Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic Byway
The drive itself
Around 100 miles of Highway 14 along the wild Poudre River and over Cameron Pass into North Park, one of Colorado's great scenic drives.
Roosevelt National Forest
Along the canyon
The forest lining the canyon, with riverside campgrounds, fishing access, and trailheads climbing into the mountains above.
Cameron Pass
About 40 miles west
A high mountain pass near 10,000 feet at the head of the byway, ringed by jagged peaks and prime moose country.