Rescuers who are looking for a young Alberta man who disappeared over a waterfall in Jasper National Park say the search has “gone into recovery mode.”

“It’s generally considered a fatal fall,” said Steve Blake, the park’s Visitor Safety Manager.

Blake says the man, 25, was hiking with a friend Thursday night when he slipped into the river and disappeared over the Athabasca Falls.

The friend called 911, but air and water searches were unable to locate the man.

Blake says the waterfall is a popular place for hikers and the park has set up barriers and warnings to keep people from falling in. But in this case, the man wasn’t near the most dangerous area.

“He was quite a ways upstream just in a section along the trail and he fell in and was unable to get out of the river,” said Blake

Blake says there have been five deaths at the falls in the past two decades, the most recent in 2006.