PROVO — Three amateur kayakers received a quick lesson in following the plan when their float along the quiet-moving Provo River below Deer Creek Dam quickly turned to churning turbulence when they overshot their planned stopping point.
Annie Williams, 25, Orem, and Laura Cummings, 22, Provo, who were making their first kayak trip, and Hyrum Conley, 21, Orem, who last kayaked several years ago, began their adventure at Deer Creek Dam, intending to exit the seemingly quiet river that slices through Provo Canyon at the Holmstead Diversion Dam, Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Darrin Gilbert said.
But the trio became separated, and when each reached the Holmstead diversion they did not see their companions and assumed they were behind the others and needed to catch up.
That led them into the turbulent, dangerous rapids, Gilbert said.
The two women rolled over within seconds of hitting the rapids but were able to slip out of their kayaks while still upside down in the swirling water and make it to shore. They pulled themselves up onto the bank about a mile above Bridal Veil Falls.
"These are expert-only rapids," Gilbert said of the lower section of the river, currently swollen with spring run-off. "I don't think they expected the contrast (with the more serene up-river currents)."
Conley, who also continued on past the diversion dam after failing to see his companions, knew within a couple of minutes that the challenge was beyond his skill. He, too, managed to extricate himself from his kayak and swim to the riverbank, Gilbert said.
Conley was briefly thought to be missing when passers-by saw the empty kayaks floating by. Two of the crafts have been recovered and deputies were continuing to look for the third kayak, Gilbert said.
"It may have gone over the Murdock Diversion Dam," Gilbert said, which is further down the river, "or it may show up in Utah Lake."
E-mail: rodger@desnews.com