Mantracking - Reading the Print

Several friends of mine have asked me to post some articles on tracking. So starting with this post, I'll do some basic tracking posts every so often in case there are any readers interested in learning and practicing this craft.

Cutting for sign. Sign is any evidence of someone or something's passing. Everything that walks on the ground leaves some sort of sign...the trick is to see it and read it.

Sign can be a flattening of the ground; a disturbance such as pushing a twig or rock into the ground; a regularity caused by lines in their footwear; or a color change or shine from the subject's passing. When I'm looking to pick up sign, I cut for sign by moving perpendicular to the direction I think the subject is heading and pick up a starting point...and like I said, we call this 'Cutting for Sign'.

It is valuable to place the area you are looking at between yourself and the Sun as this provides the best light situation, both contrast and shadow wise, to notice disturbances. If I pickup a track, I'll study it to ensure I can recognize it again. Sometimes I'll take pictures, like I did for evidence when I was building a case of Archeological or Environmental crimes as a Conservation Law Enforcement Officer. Sometimes I would even fill out a Track Report with full measurements and pattern descriptions for future reference and identification.

The basic sign you'll see is a foot print, full print or partial. You can tell many things from one or more prints: type of foot gear, rate of travel, and stride (distance between toe of one print to the heel of the next). You can gain some perspective on what the subject is thinking such as evidence left, such as the pressure release created by his footwear, which can show things like him turning around checking his back trail from someone trailing him or even looking up.

The disturbed area caused by the foot, called the Pressure Release, can give you an indication on the individual's weight, balance and speed. Normally the toe of the foot gear pushes sand or dirt forward in the direction of movement and this is called toe dirt.

An interrupted heel can add a little difficultly at first in reading the pressure release, but this can be overcome by comparing several prints or pressure releases to see what is normal.