Fatal diving incident at Bear Lake’s Cisco Beach raises safety concerns
Greg Jonas died after a dive near Cisco Beach, where Bear Lake drops to 208 feet and rescue crews airlifted him from the water.
A dive near Cisco Beach turned deadly in minutes, sending a 56-year-old West Valley City man to Logan Regional Hospital after rescue crews pulled him from Bear Lake. Greg Jonas was diving with others in about 90 to 100 feet of water when the emergency unfolded.
The Rich County Sheriff's Office said it responded to a 911 call at about 1:44 p.m. on Saturday, June 13, after the diving incident in the Cisco Beach area. Jonas was airlifted from the scene to Logan Regional Hospital, where he later died.
Cisco Beach sits on the east side of Bear Lake, and the setting helps explain why the area can turn hazardous so quickly. Bear Lake State Park describes the terrain there as rocky and says the water depth drops off rapidly to 208 feet. The beach is open to the public, but it is primitive, with no extra amenities, and state park guidance highly recommends a 4WD vehicle to reach it.
The fatality also landed in the middle of a grim stretch for Utah waterways. Utah Department of Natural Resources Division of Law Enforcement Ranger Chris Nelson said the Bear Lake death brought the state’s water-related death toll to five so far in 2026, with four of those victims not wearing life jackets. Just days earlier, a 17-year-old Arizona boy drowned at Bear Lake after falling off a paddleboard at Ideal Beach and not wearing a life jacket.
Bear Lake has long drawn summer crowds for swimming, boating, paddleboarding and diving, but the weekend death at Cisco Beach showed how thin the margin can be once people move beyond shallow shoreline conditions. Depth, rocky access and remote response times can all stack up fast, especially when a rescue depends on an airlift to reach hospital care.
For a place marketed as an easy mountain-lake escape, Cisco Beach carried a hard reminder: the same water that invites adventure can turn unforgiving when divers enter deep water without enough margin for error.
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