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A mud-spattered shirtless boatman in a black cap sits on the front deck of a dory mid-river, bare foot braced on a battered hard case, oars shipped, beneath dark cliffs streaked with orange.
Author

Jon Koenig

Trip Leader · Primary Oarsman · Photographer

Field Name Cutty
Role Trip Leader
Craft Dory, Raft
Skills Rowing, Trip Planning, River Reading, Photography, Camp Kitchen
Bio

Jon Koenig is a former river guide, photographer, and designer who has been running the rivers of the Colorado Plateau since 1999 — Cataract, Westwater, Desolation, Lodore, the Yampa, Split Mountain, the San Juan, Labyrinth, and the Grand Canyon — at everything from late-season low water to peak runoff. He guided for Holiday River Expeditions, rows a dory and a raft, and answers to Cutty on the water. Off the river he follows the same country by road and trail. Desert Maritime is where the trip logs, flow notes, camp systems, and photographs from those miles end up: not a publication schedule, but the working record of a small crew that keeps going back.

Two people sit in a wooden dory lit gold by low evening sun, drifting on still green water against a shaded, ledged canyon wall.
Golden hour in the dory — the light finds the hull and nothing else.

Latest guides

All 11 guides

  1. June 26, 2026North Wash Takeout: What Cataract Canyon Boaters Need to Know

    For most of the last decade the bottom of a Cataract trip was the part you couldn't plan. Since June 2026 there is a ramp at North Wash. Here's what's actually on the ground, what it replaced, and what the river underneath it is still doing. The North Wash ramp seen from above — a narrow paved lane with a low concrete barrier along its right edge and loose riprap along its left

  2. April 27, 2026Honda 2.3 Outboard Review for River Use

    The Honda 2.3 is the lightest serious outboard on the market. That's its main feature and its main limit. This is where it earns its place on a raft — and where it doesn't. A wooden dory beached on a silty sandbar with a small outboard motor clamped to its transom, oars shipped and a red fuel can aboard

  3. April 22, 2026Best Colorado River Rafting Companies in Utah: Buyer's Guide

    How to evaluate Colorado River rafting outfitters in Utah — what permits and guide certifications actually mean, what's included vs. extra, and when DIY makes sense. An oar raft is buried in an exploding hole at Last Chance Rapid in Westwater Canyon

  4. April 22, 2026Rafting Cataract Canyon: How to Plan the Whole Trip

    Cataract is not fourteen miles of whitewater with a float attached. It is a system where flow sets pace, pace sets days, and the takeout is the least flexible part. Built from 21 logged descents between 3,400 and 47,900 cfs. From the stern of a raft, the oarsman in a straw hat pulls through a big brown wave train while the bow passenger stands with an arm thrown up

  5. April 22, 2026Colorado River Rafting Permits in Utah: By Section

    Permit requirements for each Utah Colorado River section — BLM advance reservation for Westwater, NPS seasonal release for Cataract, and a practical cancellation-watching strategy for both. A red paddle raft with eight helmeted paddlers drives through churning brown whitewater beside dark, water-polished rock

  6. April 22, 2026Can You Camp Anywhere on BLM Land in Utah? Rules, Sourced

    The canonical Utah dispersed-camping page. BLM's statewide rules from the agency's own fact sheet, the Moab Field Office exceptions, a forest-by-forest table for the national forests, SITLA trust-land rules, fire restrictions and desert Leave No Trace — every rule number traced to its source. A towering fin of red sandstone rises above a scatter of tiny dome tents on the desert floor beneath a cloudless blue sky.
Black-and-white view of a lone hiker with a small backpack walking the sandy floor of a desert canyon beneath a huge overhanging sandstone wall, bright light raking the cliff above deep shade.
Under the overhang, walking the sandy floor of a desert canyon.

Field record

All trip reports

  1. September 30, 2026Cataract Canyon — October 2026

    Five days, Potash to North Wash, at 5,980–8,810 cfs: a first camp found in the dark, two side hikes lost to mud, and a seven-mile day spent stopping. A loaded white gear raft runs brown whitewater: an oarsman in a teal cap and black life jacket pulls on the oars

  2. March 25, 2026Desolation Canyon — March 2026

    A five-day spring descent through Desolation Canyon at very low flows, with clear weather, warm water for March, exposed rock, slow miles, and long quiet camps. The trip felt technical in a different way than high water: more boat angle, more rock dodging, more attention to channel choice, and more time to look around. The Green River flowing calm between layered sandstone walls in Desolation Canyon

  3. December 1, 2016Cataract Canyon — December 2016

    Two brothers, one dory, and the Colorado at 38°F. A December run from Potash to North Wash at 5,800 cfs — forty miles of flatwater to Cove Camp the first day, the Big Drops the second, and a night on a brand-new sandbar that was less about the view than about getting a fire lit before Sam stopped shivering. A dory sits on its trailer under a tan canvas cover buried in several inches of fresh snow