MT. HOOD -- The young man who died while snowboarding at Mount Hood Meadows Thursday was visiting from out of town and staying with friends, the sheriff's office told KGW.

Eric McConeghy, 28, fell head-first into deep powder after launching off a jump near the parking lot near the bottom of the Hood River Express chairlift late Thursday afternoon.

After interviewing McConeghy's friends, Hood River County Sheriff Joe Wampler told KGW that it appears McConeghy went over the jump, lost control, and went head first into the snow. His friends were with him and saw it happen. They rushed over to help, but McConeghy was stuck upside down to his waist in snow and they could not manage to pull him out.

Wampler said McConeghy's friends started digging but by the time they got him out, about fifteen minutes later, he had stopped breathing. McConeghy was given CPR for nearly two hours but he could not be revived.

The area where the accident happened was out of bounds, according to Dave Tragethon, the marketing and sales director for Mount Hood Meadows, and McConeghy should not have been snowboarding there. The sheriff initially said that McConeghy fell into a pole well below a ski lift but that was later deemed incorrect.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday to determine the exact cause of death. McConeghy was apparantly wearing a helmet and snowboarding with three good friends from Portland and one from Seattle.

McConeghy's father lives in Michigan and his mother lives in St. Louis. He was visiting friends in Oregon. "In conversations with family members, they feel some solace in the fact Eric was doing what he loved to do, in the company of life-long friends," Wampler said.

Skier died at Meadows a year ago

The death was the second at Mount Hood Meadows in less than a year. A 45-year-old Portland skier died from a skull fracture last January. Investigators think a snowboarder struck him from behind as he tried to get up from a fall.

 More: Details on skier's Jan. 2007 death

There were no skier or snowboarder deaths at Mount Hood Meadows in 2006 but two people died in skiing accidents during the 2005 season.