Chapter 1
The Invisible Language of the Wild
In the dense pine forests of New Jersey, a young boy knelt beside a set of tracks, his fingers tracing the subtle indentations in the soil. This wasn't just any child-it was Tom Brown Jr., who would become known simply as "The Tracker," one of the most renowned wilderness experts in America. What makes Brown's story remarkable isn't just his tracking ability, but how he acquired it: through ten years of intensive training from an 83-year-old Apache elder named Stalking Wolf, or "Grandfather." This relationship, which began when Brown was just seven years old, would transform him into a master of an ancient art that most considered lost to history. Today, Brown's tracking school in New Jersey has taught thousands of students worldwide, including military special forces and law enforcement agencies. His methods have been used to solve murders, find missing persons, and track fugitives across seemingly impossible terrain. What's most fascinating is that Brown doesn't just teach people to follow footprints-he teaches them to read the landscape like a book, where every bent blade of grass and displaced pebble tells a story. As survivalist and author Richard Graves noted, "Tom Brown doesn't just track animals; he can track your thoughts through the pressure releases in your footprints."
Chapter 2
The Sacred Path of the Scout
Growing up on the edge of the Pine Barrens wilderness, I displayed an unusual passion for wild places from my earliest years. While other children gravitated toward town and social activities, I was irresistibly drawn to the forests, collecting unusual natural specimens that eventually got me banned from kindergarten Show-and-Tell. My parents nurtured this interest with books about nature and Native Americans, but these only intensified my hunger for deeper wilderness knowledge.
Everything changed when I met Stalking Wolf, my best friend Rick's grandfather. This 83-year-old Apache elder possessed the wilderness knowledge I'd been searching for. Despite friction with Rick's father, who rejected his Native American heritage, Grandfather stayed for over ten years, becoming our teacher and mentor. As a "Coyote teacher," he never answered questions directly but made us work for knowledge, demanding complete mastery of each skill before teaching the next.
Grandfather's stories of the Scouts-an elite Medicine Society of wilderness masters and trackers-became my model for living. These Scouts had refined tracking to an intense science and art, identifying over 5,000 "pressure releases" (miniature landscape features within tracks) that revealed intimate details about the track-maker. This accumulated wisdom from countless generations was passed to me with the understanding that I would preserve and transmit this knowledge.
This sacred responsibility is why I established my Tracking School and wrote this book. The knowledge contained here isn't mine alone-it belongs to generations of Apache Scouts who refined these techniques through centuries of observation and practice. Their wisdom deserves preservation not as a historical curiosity but as a living skill that reconnects us to the natural world in profound ways.
Chapter 3
The Consciousness of Tracking
Grandfather saw tracking and awareness as inseparable aspects of the same consciousness. Tracking without awareness imprisons one to the trail, missing everything beyond it. Awareness without tracking becomes shallow, preventing true understanding of animals and nature.
I learned this lesson through frustration, watching Grandfather effortlessly spot countless animals while I saw nothing. When I finally demanded to know his secret, he explained: "Your problem is not that you are watching the land in the wrong way, but that you do not know what land to watch." He taught us to read the "sign" and see the "islands" on the landscape-places where animals were likely to be found based on their needs and habits.
As my tracking knowledge grew, I discovered the reciprocal relationship between plants and animals-each influencing the other, forming nature's fabric of consciousness where every being is a thread in life's tapestry. Through tracking, we connect with the spirit-that-moves-through-all-things.
A track is never isolated but reflects the entire world around it, recording action and reaction. Each track contains concentric rings of activity connecting to countless others, revealing not just the present but the past. When we track, we connect to the animal's very soul, eventually feeling its hunger, apprehension, and movements within our own consciousness. Our awareness expands from the animal to the landscape it reacted to, touching the cosmos itself.
This is why tracking transcends mere observation. We become every track we explore, unlocking life's mysteries and touching eternity through the simple act of following footprints across the earth. The tracker's consciousness expands beyond individual perception to embrace the interconnected web of all living things.
Chapter 4
The Eye of the Tracker
Grandfather's perception transcended ordinary observation-his intense physical awareness matched his spiritual abilities. He believed awareness was the doorway to spirit, demanding mastery of physical observation before venturing into spiritual lessons. To him, lack of physical awareness indicated spiritual fraudulence.
The "eye of the tracker" was his term for this heightened perception-the ability to extract vast information from the landscape with just a glance. He taught us this through two fundamental questions: "What happened here?" and "What is this telling me?"
I first encountered this concept not through lecture but demonstration. After Rick and I explored a new area of the Pine Barrens, we returned hungry to camp. Grandfather directed us to find dinner "at the site of the big grandfather pine." Confused, we searched fruitlessly as there were no large pines in the fire-damaged area.
When we admitted failure, Grandfather led us to a small clearing and asked what was strange about the surrounding trees. I eventually noticed the young pines had no branches facing the clearing. This revealed the ghost of a once-mighty grandfather pine whose shadow had prevented those branches from growing. Our dinner waited at the clearing's center, exactly where the ancient tree had stood.
"The clearing and small trees are tracks," Grandfather explained, "concentric rings telling of things around them now and things that influenced them in the past." From that day, everything in creation became a track to us, each element crying out with clues to its mysteries.
Through constant practice and observation, the "eye of the tracker" became embedded in our consciousness. Today, even walking a mere fifty yards from my house to my lecture hall, I can see where rabbits fed, raccoons foraged, weasels hunted, and countless other stories written on the landscape-all gathered at a glance without breaking stride. This level of questioning awareness must be achieved by all who seek to become master trackers, penetrating beyond the obvious to reach deeper levels of understanding.
Chapter 5
The Science of Pressure Releases
Many students mistakenly believe that tracking requires superhuman eyesight or senses. This isn't true. Tracking is both science and art, but not the kind of art requiring inborn talent. Everyone possesses innate tracking ability-it's embedded in our genes from generations of hunting ancestors. Even one of my legally blind students tracks effectively using only his hands.
What tracking truly requires is passion for learning bordering on obsession. The techniques of tracking awaken the artistic right brain that processes patterns, colors, and textures rather than linear thought. Tracking progresses through three levels: first as science, where we learn the mechanical facts about tracks; then as art, where we perceive the beauty in tracks; finally as spiritual communication, where the animal comes alive in its tracks and we fuse our mind with it.
The foundation of tracking science lies in understanding pressure releases-the way soil responds to pressure from feet. Pressure releases are essentially miniature landscape features created within tracks that reveal intimate details about the track-maker. Just as geologists read the history of Earth in rock formations, trackers read the story of movement in pressure releases.
One powerful lesson came shortly after meeting Grandfather. When I asked him about a mink track's age, he directed me to a fresh deer track in similar soil, saying cryptically, "This track will teach you the age of the mink tracks." Then he left me.
After two frustrating hours, I abandoned the track and returned to camp. Grandfather expressed disappointment and departed. Chastened, I returned to the deer track and watched it for a full day and night. I became completely absorbed in its grain-by-grain deterioration, forgetting food, water, and comfort. By morning, the deer track had reached the same level of deterioration as the mink track, revealing it was exactly a day old.
This lesson showed me what Grandfather truly expected: a passion for tracking that bordered on obsession. There's no substitute for "dirt time"-hours spent studying tracks and applying tracking mechanics. While this book will make you a great tracker with minimal field experience, becoming an awesome tracker demands putting in the hours.
Chapter 6
The Language of the Wall
The first pressure release system I'll share concerns "pressure against the wall"-how the sides of tracks respond to directional changes and weight shifts. These pressure releases reveal whether an animal has shifted direction, lost balance, turned its head, or made other subtle movements.
Natural tracks have sloping walls rather than vertical ones. The sides are called walls, the bottom is the track floor, and ground level is called the horizon. When a foot enters and exits the ground straight up and down, the wall appears unaffected-this is called a cliff. But when the foot presses against the wall, distinctive formations appear.
A ridge rises above the track horizon when the foot presses lightly on the track wall, buckling it upward. This indicates a slight direction change, like turning from 12:00 to 12:15 on a clock face. With more pressure, the ridge rises upward then bends slightly back toward the track center, forming a crest. This indicates a more significant direction change (like turning from 12:00 to 12:30).
As pressure increases further, the wall is hit with such force that the crest breaks apart and falls into the track-this is called a crest-crumble. Moving into moderate pressure against the wall, a cave forms when the foot slightly bends down, digging under the wall. This happens during more dramatic turns, like changing direction from 12:00 to 1:00.
With very high pressure, plates form during dramatic turns and stops. The wall buckles, splits far back on the horizon, and a large plate-like disk of earth slides up on the horizon. Importantly, a line drawn through the center of a plate will point directly to the next track. Under extreme pressure, the wall is hit with such violent force that it literally explodes, potentially fanning dirt several feet from the track.
Each pressure release comes in eight different sizes, proportional to the track depth. A full ridge is as high as the track is deep, while a half ridge is half that height, and so on down to an eighth ridge. These increments allow precise measurement of pressure intensity and direction change.
Beyond primary pressure releases are secondaries that "ride upon" the primaries. While primary releases show major movements like turns or stops, secondaries reveal subtle adjustments, hesitations, and balance corrections. This system provides trackers with extraordinary sensitivity to movement, allowing them to identify the most minute changes in direction or weight distribution.
Chapter 7
Forward Motion and Speed
Just as wall pressure releases reveal direction changes, another system of pressure releases indicates speed and forward motion. Regardless of the animal's size, the pressure releases indicating relative speed (walk, trot, gallop) remain consistent across species because foot size proportional to body mass creates similar soil dynamics.
The first increment of forward motion occurs when the heel strikes at an angle, pushing up a mound of earth in front called a wave. The foot then rolls over this mound, compressing it, before pushing against it for forward momentum. This pressure release indicates a slow, purposeless walk or stroll in humans and animals.
With slightly increased speed and purpose, the pushing-off motion becomes more intense. The front of the original wave buckles slightly from toe action, producing a second, smaller wave on the nose of the original-a double wave. This indicates a natural, purposeful walk.
As speed increases further, the foot compresses the initial wave but adds more pressure against it. The toes and ball press hard enough to fracture off a disk-shaped clump of soil at the front of the wave. This pressure release indicates a fast walk. With even greater speed, the disk forms but then fissures from the added pressure and intensity, indicating a slow jog in humans and a trot in animals.
At higher speeds, the entire wave sheers off creating a large disk-shaped plate called a dish. This dramatic pressure release involves more surface area and indicates a fast jog in humans or a bound in animals. Following the same pattern as other pressure releases, the dish will fissure under increased pressure and intensity, indicating a slow run in human tracks and a lope in animal tracks.
At maximum speed, the pushing-off pressure and intensity far exceed what the foot's surface area can contain. The track literally blows out, scattering earth well beyond the heel print in what's called an explode-off. This dramatic pressure release indicates a sprint in both human and animal tracks-the ultimate expression of forward propulsion force.
Each pressure release is further divided into eight gradations based on size proportion to the track. This system creates 108 distinct pressure releases for forward motion, providing trackers with extraordinary speed sensitivity, allowing them to identify eight different gradations within each general speed category.
Chapter 8
Reading the Mind Through Tracks
Beyond revealing physical movements, tracks offer windows into the mind and emotional state of their makers. Roll and head position pressure releases show exactly where an animal is looking and whether its head is held high or low. When the heel and toe of a track are equal depth, the animal's head is in neutral position-comfortable, mildly alert. If the heel section is deeper than the toe, the animal's weight is back on its heels with head in an upright alert position. When the toe section is deeper than the heel, the animal's weight is forward with head down in a sniffing or feeding position.
Head position is determined by examining the depth of different parts of the track. When the outside right toe is deepest while other toes are shallow, the animal is looking to its right. If both the outside right toe and adjacent toe are deep, the animal is looking slightly right. These indicators work regardless of roll position-if the head is down while looking right, the outer right toe would be even deeper than all other toes, with the heel shallower than all toes.
Even more remarkably, toe ridge pressure releases capture the finest internal movements like swallowing, grimacing, or intestinal gas bubbles. Most significantly, these pressure releases record emotions and even thoughts through the subtle body postures they create. Each emotion generates its own distinctive body posture that imprints on tracks in predictable ways. Depression shows as slumped shoulders, bowed head, and dragging feet in tracks, while joy appears with head held high, squared shoulders, and a bounce in step. Fear manifests as confusion and nervousness, anger as rigidity with pounding feet.
Thought patterns also create physical changes. When considering turning right while walking straight, you'll see hesitation pressure releases at digital level, reverberation pressure releases, a slight sway right, and shift in strike dominance to the right foot. Practice by walking through tracking boxes while experiencing genuine emotions or thoughts-mimicking them produces confusing results.
Through these subtle indicators, master trackers can literally read the minds of those they track. This isn't mystical-it's based on the observable fact that our thoughts and emotions create physical changes in our bodies that transfer to our tracks. The connection between mind and body becomes visible in the earth beneath our feet.
Chapter 9
The Individual Signature
Through pressure releases, we've learned to define major and minor body movements, both internal and external, of animals and humans. We understand how they move broadly, what smaller movements are involved, and can penetrate into their core to read the smallest movements and internal organ functions. Pressure releases are like words in an open book-a manuscript of life telling us everything about the entity we track.
Using these pressure releases, master trackers can precisely locate the next track before seeing it. All wisdom about upcoming tracks is contained in the current track's pressure releases. Master trackers rarely lose trails even in difficult terrain because they observe tracks differently-with intense detail and analysis. Their eyes become attuned to the obscure, making tracking across solid rock as easy as tracking in sand.
Another benefit of master tracking is the ability to identify exactly which animal is being tracked. Unlike typical trackers who rely on measurements (which vary due to weather and soil conditions), master trackers use indicator pressure releases-unique "fingerprints" that never change throughout an animal's life. These allow trackers to follow the same individual without confusion, even when trails cross or merge.
Indicator pressure releases function like fingerprints-no two are identical. They allow master trackers to identify exactly which individual they're following without needing time-consuming measurements. These identifying marks remain constant throughout an animal's life, letting you recognize a track from the same animal whether made yesterday or years ago.
Unlike functional pressure releases, indicator pressure releases appear redundantly regardless of the animal's movement or function. They're typically found at the digital, lobular, and toe ridge levels. An indicator pressure release will appear in the same location every time that foot touches the ground, regardless of speed, direction, or other variables.
Each footprint contains at least sixty-five indicator pressure releases, making them statistically more defining than fingerprints. You can distinguish indicators from functional pressure releases because indicators have no corresponding pressure releases elsewhere in the track. Even heavy footwear can't hide these indicators-they register through boots and shoes and appear in all tracking environments, even on solid rock.
Chapter 10
Tracking in Impossible Places
I'm appalled by how rarely and ineffectively tracking is used in search and rescue and police work, despite being the most obvious evidence available. Law enforcement typically stops at identifying shoe manufacturers and estimating size and weight-merely the beginning for trained trackers. After forty-one years tracking for police, I've found the problem isn't incompetence but lack of education, with many seeing tracking as a romantic art form rather than powerful science.
Every law enforcement agency should have a trained tracker, regardless of jurisdiction-urban or wilderness. No two people walk the same way or leave identical indicator pressure releases. These releases function like fingerprints for identification purposes. When investigating crime scenes, I first read the overall track scenario to understand what transpired, then identify consistent indicator pressure releases across multiple tracks.
Beyond traditional tracking surfaces, debris compressions are key to tracking on forest or field litter. First identify the natural loft or debris height of the environment, then look for dents or compressions in the debris which indicate tracks. Within these compressions, look deeper to isolate broken, abraded, bent and otherwise disturbed materials to further define the track pattern.
For hard surfaces like floors and gravel, dust and grit compressions reveal tracks. Every tracking environment has dust and grit particles that get crushed down when stepped upon. These compressions create a visual contrast: if the overall surface appears shiny, the track will appear as a dull spot; if the surface is dull, the track will appear shiny.
To see dust and grit compressions, use "sideheading"-viewing tracks from a severe angle by lying down with your cheek against the tracking surface, using alternate eyes to see tracks at different distances. Most importantly, keep the track between you and the light source, whether sunlight, flashlight, or reflected light. This technique works on any surface, making it possible to track across what might otherwise seem "impossible" terrain.
Chapter 11
The Eternal Track
The journey of tracking never truly ends. As I wrote in my first book, "The first track is the end of a string" leading to a moving being, but the ultimate track reaches beyond physical life into the spiritual domain. After forty years of tracking, I still haven't found the final track. A tracker is always tracking, whether in city, suburb, or wilderness, following trails that ultimately lead to eternity.
We begin as curious children touching tracks in wonder, then learn the language of pressure releases until tracks speak to us. Finally, we must become the animal we track, feeling its movement within us. This book marks both an ending and beginning-the beginning of your "dirt time" and journey along life's trails. You now possess knowledge passed down through generations, and must master these pressure releases to pass them to future trackers.
Tracking is simultaneously science, art, and philosophy-the ultimate extension of awareness. The science lies in pressure releases, the art in reading Earth like an open book, and the philosophy in the deep awareness it brings. Ultimately, tracking must transcend physical limitations and reach into the eternal.
As Grandfather would pray before tracking: "Allow me to become the Earth, teach me to surrender to the tracks, so that I may become that which I follow, and if I am worthy, allow these tracks to lead me closer to You." This prayer captures the essence of tracking's spiritual dimension-it's not merely about following footprints but about following a path to deeper connection with all of creation.
Through tracking, we recover a lost language-the first language of Earth. In learning to read the stories written in soil, we reconnect with our ancestral awareness and find our place in the greater story of life. The tracks are waiting. The journey begins with your next step.
