Session Content

One day, 4 hour course, 2 hours in the classroom and 2 hours in the field
Opening lecture - Introduction to Human Tracking, will be based on these hand-out materials
A Question and Answer session will follow lecture
Field work - We'll break up into groups of three to begin tracking. Groups will begin at a marked line of sign with an obvious footprint and draw and measure the print. Next we'll set up our tracking sticks to measure the stride interval of the subject and then begin tracking.

Part 1 — What Constitutes a "Sign" and the Importance of Being "Track Aware"

As Search and Rescue volunteers, our goal is to help recover a lost individual. But it's important to understand that we are not just looking for a person. We should be looking for any physical indication that the lost individual has left behind. We should be looking for "Sign."

So, what is a sign?
Sign is all evidence, not limited to footfalls, of a person's passage or presence.

Signs that are easy to see might include discarded clothing, a lost hat, a water bottle or candy wrappers.

The harder to see signs are the broken twigs, bruised vegetation and compressed leaves left behind when a foot strikes the ground.

Without taking a class like this you'd probably find that what an experienced tracker "sees" and calls a sign, would look to you like nothing at all. You might even think that the tracker is crazy. But he's not. The tracker has a different mindset and the tracker has a trained eye.

Can you see the signs in the picture to the right? It's there, but it's hard to see with an untrained eye.

The field portion of our class is designed to change how you think about what constitutes a sign, and to train your eye so that you'll see what might otherwise be invisible to you. That way you can understand the patience and concentration it takes to notice a sign in the first place. And hopefully, you'll be a better Search and Rescue Volunteer for the experience, because on a real search, finding a sign that you might otherwise overlook could mean the difference between life and death for the subject of the search. Simply put, the importance of you being "track aware" could someday save a life.