Charles Duane Gustafson, 72, of Beltrami, Minnesota, was last seen at approximately 6:55 a.m. on October 11, 2006, in the Medicine Bow National Forest, about eight miles south of Arlington, Wyoming, at the road junction of Forest Roads 111 and 129 in Carbon County. He had traveled from Minnesota to hunt elk with a cousin and nephew, an area he had hunted regularly for roughly ten years. The three separated that morning to hunt in different directions, planning to reconvene at camp by evening. Gustafson did not return. When he failed to arrive, a member of the hunting party fired three shots into the air; the group heard three shots fired in return but could not locate him. He was wearing a brown hooded sweatshirt, a blaze-orange vest, charcoal-gray pants, and a blaze-orange hunting hat, and was carrying a Winchester .30-06 rifle with a camouflage-green stock and blue metal barrel, along with a map, GPS device, compass, ammunition, food, water, and a knife. He also wore a wedding ring and a black Casio watch. Overnight temperatures fell into the thirties, and snow followed in the days after his disappearance.
The Carbon County Sheriff's Office led the investigation, working with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation; an extensive ground and air search of the forest turned up no trace of Gustafson. He had become lost in the same area the day before his disappearance and was found and returned to camp by a logger; his hunting companions later said he had appeared to have trouble orienting himself, possibly related to altitude, despite his familiarity with the area. Family members described him as being in excellent health at the time and noted he had received wilderness-survival training during an earlier enlistment in the U.S. Air Force. His credit cards were last used on October 7, 2006, four days before he was reported missing. Gustafson was declared legally deceased by the State of Minnesota on December 19, 2007. The case remains open and unsolved. Agency case #06-002613; NamUs #MP78; NCIC #M-436128137. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Carbon County Sheriff's Office at (307) 324-2776 or the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation at (307) 777-7181.
