CUMMINGTON - An 18-year-old Cummington man and avid skier was found dead at the Jackson Hole Mountain Ski Resort in Wyoming on Wednesday.

Zephyr S. Rapinchuk, a freshman at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., and 2010 graduate of the Academy at Charlemont, was found unresponsive and later pronounced dead at a local clinic Wednesday. The Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Ski Patrol said it appeared Rapinchuk struck a tree.

Here, friends struggled to cope with the death of a young man who, they said, was loved by all who knew him.

"On a day like today, he would have been at Berkshire East skiing," said Jesse Porter-Henry, Rapinchuk's ski coach and senior adviser at the Academy of Charlemont, noting the snow that fell Wednesday.

Rapinchuk had captained the ski team during his time at Charlemont, Porter-Henry said.

"He was enthusiastic about all he did, be it skiing or photography - he was a very good photographer - or music," Porter-Henry said.

Alex Gagnon was a close friend of Rapinchuk's and had been a classmate of his since the pair began at Charlemont as seventh-graders.

"He was the happiest kid," Gagnon said. "We all thought he going to be the president one day."

Rapinchuk was first reported missing at 10:07 p.m. (Mountain Standard Time) on Tuesday, Jackson Hole communications manager Zahan Billimoria said Wednesday. Searchers worked for more than four hours overnight before suspending the effort at 2:30 a.m. local time.

Jackie Skaggs, a spokeswoman for the Grand Teton National Park Service, said Rapinchuk was last seen boarding the aerial tram going to the mountain's summit shortly before 3 p.m. Tuesday. She said it appeared he was skiing alone at the time.

On Wednesday, emergency personnel from the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Ski Patrol, Teton County Search and Rescue and Grand Teton National Park Search and Rescue continued to search for the Cummington resident. His body was found at 1:30 p.m., in what a resort statement described to as a "tree island."

"JHMR Ski Patrol assessed the situation and determined that he had collided with a tree," the statement read. "They transported the victim to the Teton Village Clinic where he was officially pronounced dead."

Skiing was one of the great joys of Rapinchuk's life, Porter-Henry said. The Charlemont ski coach recalled a day last year when he, Rapinchuk and another student went to Berkshire East following an afternoon snowstorm. Porter-Henry said he and Rapinchuk shared a love of Skittles, the candy.

"We ate some Skittles, skied in this powder, yelled a lot and just enjoyed it all," Porter-Henry said. "Then the next day I was there at the ski area and he arrived at 11 a.m., ready to go. He just enjoyed life."

Rapinchuk was an active, outgoing person, his friend Alex Gagnon said. As a student at Charlemont, Rapinchuk played lacrosse and soccer, played drums with five friends in a band called Asplund, and was a member of the school's United Nations team.

Traveling to a Model U.N. session at Harvard University one year, Rapinchuk made quite an impression with the 200 students who had gathered at the event, Gagnon said.

"At some point, everyone was talking about it afterwards, he just got up and started rapping," Gagnon said. "He was the hit of the whole trip. Everybody loved him."

Gagnon's mother, Shelley Dresser, said Rapinchuk always served as master of ceremonies for events at Charlemont.

"He was funny, he always self-corrected, he just had the personality," she said.

Rapinchuk is the son of Tanya Rapinchuk and Kamal Souccar of Cummington. He has a younger sister, friends said.

Rapinchuk's senior project at the academy was photographing defunct ski areas in the region, including Mount Tom and Maple Valley and Hogback Mountain in southern Vermont. He wrote that being forced to hike the mountains instead of taking the closed-down chair lifts made for more rewarding skiing.

Matt Pilon can be reached at mpilon@gazettenet.com. Ben Storrow can be reached at bstorrow@gazettenet.com.