John Wipert has gone on a walkabout.

The 60-year-old Alaska resident hasn't been seen since the middle of June, when he was working as a caretaker at the Ptarmigan Lake Lodge.

The lodge, owned and operated by 90-year-old Urban Rahoi, is inside Kluane National Park at the headwaters of Beaver Creek.

Rahoi reported Wipert missing last Thursday, when he showed up at Ptarmigan Lake with a load of groceries and found the property uninhabited.

"He seemed like a nice guy who liked to live out in the woods," Rahoi said today of his missing employee. "But you just never know about people."

Wipert, who has lived in Alaska for some time, had only worked for Rahoi for a few weeks.

When Rahoi flew into the lodge with supplies in mid-June, Wipert had talked about heading toward Canada along the White River.

"Apparently he wants to go to Wyoming," Rahoi told the Star .

Rahoi advised against the White River route, according to Striker Oderly, a guide who works at the lodge.

"He told him, 'No way; you got to go out along Beaver Creek,'" Oderly told the Star.

When Rahoi returned last week, Wipert was gone. The house was in a shambles.

"He basically went through all the buildings," Oderly said. "He did some real crazy stuff - took the door off the house, cut the hinges in half - stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense."

Wipert took two horses with him, a bay and a black, both geldings. He left a third in the corral, ready to go.

"If Rahoi hadn't have gone in there when he did, that horse would have died," Oderly said.

Without food or water, the remaining horse was starved and dehydrated when the lodge owner found it.

Neither Rahoi nor Oderly know when Wipert left, but the state of the horse, plus the evidence of rotting food on the counters and a fully defrosted freezer, led them to believe he must have gone shortly after Rahoi's mid-June supply run.

Along with the inexplicable things Wipert did before he left, there are more obvious clues.

"He had every map we had of the country laid out," Oderly said. "Maps of the area, and of Canada, with the route along Beaver Creek marked out."

On one map, Oderly said, they found a note reading, "Gone to check out the cabin. Back tomorrow night."

There is no cabin within a day's ride, according to the guide, and with two horses and a full pack, Wipert was clearly preparing for a much longer trip.

"I think he just went buggy being out there," Oderly said.

Rahoi, a veteran bush pilot, has been searching for the man and horses by land and air, with help from other guides in the area. Apart from a few sets of old tracks, they haven't had any luck.

"He's got a two-week head start on us," Oderly said. "And who knows if he's sold the horses or abandoned them, or what?"

At least one of the animals is branded with a half-circle and a star, Oderly said. It is his nine-year-old son's horse.

"I haven't told him yet," he said.

The Alaska State Troopers are on the case, and the Mounties announced their involvement Monday. The Yukon RCMP's Twin Otter will leave Whitehorse tomorrow to search the White River and Beaver Creek areas.

"They're not going to find anything by air," Rahoi said. "If he's in the trees, there's no way we'll see him."