The Crystal River Narrows is one of the most classic runs in the Roaring fork Valley. The narrows is less of a run and more of a long, continuous rapid that heavily changes character dependent on flows. At low water, the narrows is a fantastic intro to creeking with lots of good eddies to catch and relatively friendly holes. At high water, the river turns into a mini North Fork of the Payette with lots of channelized water, big holes, and huge waves for fast-paced big water creeping, but is a lot more pushy and full-on. At medium flows, the run stays as solid creeking with a good gradient and lots of fun moves to make. While this river is beautiful, the river bed is shallow, sharp, and ugly so make sure you keep your head dry. No matter the flow, the crux of the run happens about 100 feet downstream of where the whitewater starts. There is a large-river wide hole with a large undercut on the right that the water pushes into. Make sure to pull a big boof stroke either over the center or left of the hole. The rest of the run is fairly read and run, but it is worth it for first-timers to scout the run from the road beforehand. There are three different pullouts between the takeout and put-in to scout the run from on the left side of the road.
To stretch out the run, you can paddle past the takeout and do the Avalanche creek section of the Crystal River, which is an extra five miles of fun and beautiful class III.
From Carbondale, take highway 133 towards Redstone. The takeout is a pullout just below the bridge to Avalanche Creek at mile marker 57 and the put-in is at penny hot springs, which will be a pullout near mile 55.
See _Colorado Rivers and Creeks II_, by Banks and Eckardt _(The Bible)_, for info on this and most of the other kewl runs of Colorado.
Lat/longitude coords are approximate, from TopoZone.
See also
Avalanche Creek to BRB Campground (Class III),
Crystal Mill Falls to before Crystal Gorge (Class III-IV(V)),
Redstone to Penny Hot Springs (Class V+),
Marble to Redstone (Class III-IV), and
above Beaver Lake (Class V+),
North Fork Crystal (Class V+).