ReWildU Teacher Tracking Challenge

Description

Rather long and shaky, but a chance to follow along on one of the challenges that ReWildUniversity teachers create for each other. This also serves as a tracking "tips and tricks" video, giving lots of advice on how to follow a human trail, how to shift attention to your peripheral vision, and much more. I wish the signs would have come out better via video, but in some cases you'll be able to see the silvering, direct tracks, or disturbances that indicate human passage.

This is an awesome game to play with your friends -- I'll give more details at http://www.rewildu.com/teacher_tracking_challenge/

Visit http://www.rewildu.com for information on how to visit us for classes or workshops on reconnecting with your primal self through ancestral skills, martial arts, wilderness survival skills, homesteading skills, and much more. We'll hope to see you in the woods!

Tags: Tracking,Survival,Wilderness Survival,ReWild University,ReWildU,Kenton Whitman,Mike Helfman,How to track,tracking tips and tricks,Wood lore,woods skills,survival skills,human tracking,survival schools,rewilding schools,human rewilding

Video Transcription

you're rewilding to keep the teachers in top training so today mike has set a tracking course for me he left about an hour ago and I'm gonna go see if I can find him what I do know is that he brought along a big white dog and a machete he's wearing hiking boots here we can see his initial tracks these are pretty easy to see what I'm looking at she's laid over pieces of grass he's leaving some signs along the way making it a little easy for me here there's that machete cutting through some staghorn sumac he's also walking hard a lot of the grasses are laid down here we passed under an old windmill again you can see that track sort of the silvery in the grass heading back into the woods here in the woods his heavy boots are leaving quiet a path for me he's trotting heavily on purpose you can see plants that are laid down or bent over often we're looking for a different sort of green like you see right there this is the first print that shows a little bit of tread and tell this is fresh it's moving very easily to my finger that's the tread of his hiking boots here again in the dried leaves were looking for just a different color you can see the dark there where the leaves have been kicked up he's definitely playing the part of a hard Walker this hiker that he's playing has been breaking some branches and treading again pretty heavily another well-defined track and the Sun is really making this stand dog can really see that edge of that booth very clear-cut it's getting a little confusing up this way is a path and there's some disruptions and the leaves it look like could have been him over here we have a really disrupted path this to me looks more like it's deer really strong cuts into the leaves I'm going to investigate a little bit further nope I was incorrect there is a really nice print there's this heel mark so I'm gonna head down this way another tricky one he was right here

that's one of his prints and then some disturbance off that way mm main path going off that way I'm gonna have to check it out and see what I can find at this point I think the dog probably didn't come with him I haven't seen any sign of the Dalek he's definitely throw me for a loop here I kind of stuck at this place can't seem to find anything it doesn't like he sat down right here so I'm hoping if I investigate further writer on this area it'll show me something that gives me a clue where he's gone okay remember that big tree that was in the frame a little while ago I did see some of his tracks that led down here and sure enough he's left me a little clue some of that white dog fur maybe brought it along in his pocket okay now we're just down the log there's this piece of bark and I'm guessing that's his work another clue we left for me walking right down here hmm you might have seen me pop that off he left a piece of church for me he said we use this for but nothing now we've got an easy path again there's those laid over plants and we are back on track left another nice bit of fur for me so the track is fairly easy to follow through the forest here I'm gonna try to speed track for a little bit to catch up to cuz he's pretty far here we go is probably just can't really track by camera so don't feel bad if you don't see anything but right through here it his tracks on the ground some late / plants and I'm gonna start running ah the wood metal that is gonna be burning my legs he was nice enough to cut me a little path though nice a little break cuz it's easy to track and he's gonna save my shorts and bare feet a little bit of sting no he's heading up the ravine and climbing for a while it's a deer path over there mud looks from the signs disrupted leaves there and then you can see a little silvering on the grass right there that he went up to the right let's see if I'm crack yes indeed there's a footprint going up there's another track and off this way two paths diverged in a wood and Mike took the right one again this might not show up there's a path which would have been a logical continuation of his travels but he is actually cut off to the left grass is bent over and it looks like he's left me again little mark to tell me that I am correct over the top of an old fence you've left me another token on top of this log been trying to pick up the tokens he leaves and I was running I probably missed some that first one we found in the log was also in a burnt stick so I'll pocket this one and have something to show all right he's left another token here's the tracks of something else clearing away a lot of ground heading down the hill that is water and their nuclear ground visit my crack my cassette this track lying perfectly for me for my level of tracking ability when he leaves a tough puzzle he needs a little bit of a clue let me know that I'm on the right path a lot of the time has been spent just looking or find a place right can't figure out where he's gone my best bet is just to stand there and look with a loose vision looking for disruption in the green relief has been upturned you know a living leaf has been upturned and and created a different shade of green on the rest of the green that's out there or plant that's pushed over something that escapes a casual glance but if you said and you look with a moose gaze an option when tracking quickly at a run we can't really stop and pay attention to every little sign so we're really trying to read those those color changes so we're seeing you can probably see the green color changes there the lighter green of some of these plans and you can also see some of the darker the coloration of leaves that have been kicked up been depending on his heavy tread a lot but here we have a lot of disruptions in the forest floor some are caused by some plants that are coming up all those are left by squirrels that's a very strong one you can tell Mike because it leaves a linear path humans like to travel in a straight line usually great my legs aren't itching anymore and I get to go back into the wood novels now we're headed up a ravine I'm going to be looking for spots where between the rocks there's some dirt and attract luck or soil or sand that's been left on top of the rocks alright in addition I'm scanning the edges as I go looking for any disrupted vegetation where he would have climbed up here's the track and he left her rock that he picked up for me you can see the fresh wet sand this is interesting human had his his hand there's going a quadruped at through here it's grape of a boot on what would and here's very climbed up out of that ravine you can probably see the late / grass come up to the end of the ravine here's where we came from he walked it all the way to the end we're along a path now with a lot of pine needle and leaf cover and so it's tougher to see his tracks this is one you can see the edge there and some of the pattern of the tread there but we also have a lot of deer traveling these paths and deer off and leave a real strong cut mark like that with the edge of their hoods it can look like the edge of a boo so you really have to look at the rest of the track there look for that entire outline another trick with tracking on paths is to just keep light peripheral vision on the track itself on the path itself and keep most of your attention on either side of the path watching for disruptions in the undergrowth where the person would have beard off so we use that method now and hope that I can make up a little time here's the deer path continuing on we're undisrupted you can see geared off to the left again we're looking at some of these plants that are just pushed over looking a little bit different than the rest of the foliage now we're in a field lots of goldenrod here and feeling a lot more confident there's a really nice well laid bath there yeah there's a split went off that way going off that way so this one looks a little more laid down recently so I'm going to follow straight going right along the edge of the farmer's field here and again that path is really nice so I'm going to run again and make up some time again to pass the right one looks a little bit more laid down in the right direction some will follow it up and he's left a really nice token free okay it looks like he crawled right through here and out the other side and at last

I think I thought hey hello mommy I was getting worried cuz I ran out of chocolate a few minutes you save any oh man it's gone i'm starting to get worried you