(Continued from Part 2.)
Weather
The weather can have a significant impact on both the trackers as well as the trackees. A clear sunny day can make it easier to follow someone visually and detect signs of their passage, while rain, snow, fog or mist can reduce visibility and require trackers to close the distance or move slower to locate sign. At the same time, snow on the ground will leave obvious footprints and is one of the easiest conditions in which to track someone, unless it’s snowing hard enough or blowing snow that fills in or covers tracks. Rain will soften the ground and increase the chances of leaving footprints, but heavy rain can also wash away signs. Wind can carry sounds and scents, increasing their detection distance, and odors can be more easily detected in cold weather.
As a trackee you may have the advantage of choosing what kind of conditions you travel in, depending on the weather and your schedule.
Distance/Schedule
From a tracker’s perspective, distance is an enemy – in most scenarios, the further you have to track someone the more likely you are to lose them, assuming the tracker can’t outpace the trackees and catch up to them. The trackers also need to decide if they have enough resources to continue a long pursuit, and if the end goals are worth the investment in time and resources.
As a trackee you may have the option of taking a longer and more convoluted route to your destination, giving you more of a chance to detect and evade any trackers or break your track. If you have the right gear you may also be able to continue traveling at night, which may make it harder to track you.
Transport
The type of transport available to both the tracker and trackee can make a huge difference in meeting both of their goals. Assuming there’s a clear trail of sign or visual contact and usable terrain, a tracker on a bike can go a lot faster than someone on foot. Conversely, a trackee on a bike can potentially gain a significant lead over a tracker, but they’re more likely to leave clear sign on many types of terrain. If water features are available, a trackee can use something like a Klymit Lightwater Dinghy [1] to cross a lake or get down a river to break their trail and lose a tracker. In snowy conditions having snowshoes or cross-country skis can benefit both parties, but they definitely leave a clear trail in snow. Motorized transport such as cars, motorcycles, ATVs or snowmobiles can allow a trackee to outdistance a tracker, but they may limit the routes you can take and they tend to make a lot of noise; that noise will almost certainly allow a trackee to figure out that they’re being followed and provide a tracker with a method to localize a trackee. Conversely, if a trackee has motorized transport and the tracker doesn’t, they’re more likely to escape. Electric vehicles eliminate the engine noise, but keeping them charged in a grid-down scenario will probably be tough.
The use of vehicles is obviously heavily dependent on the type of terrain you’re operating in – in dense forests, mountainous or swampy terrain, most vehicles won’t provide much of an advantage to either party.
Repetition
One final factor that can impact someone’s ability to track you is repetition – following the same route or path over and over again. Leaving a well-worn path can make it a lot easier for someone to track you to both your origin and destination, even if they hadn’t originally been following you. Closely related to this is the use of paths or trails; there’s a saying in the military – ‘Trails are for people that want to get ambushed’. Following a repetitive path can make tracking someone a lot easier, especially in an urban environment. The tracker only needs to follow you for a little while one day, take up a position along your path the next day and follow you a little more, and repeat until they identify your destination. Regardless of the environment, it’s a good idea to get in the habit of varying the path you take for repeated trips as much as schedule, terrain and conditions allow.
Dogs
The first thing that tends to pop into most people’s head when they hear the word ‘tracking’ is the use of dogs to track someone. With their incredible sense of smell, a well-trained tracking dog can significantly increase your ability to track someone, but they’re not a perfect solution. It can take years of training for both the dog as well as the handler to develop the level of skill attained by professional tracking teams – that being said, it’s possible to begin developing basic tracking skills [2] in almost any dog (unfortunately I no longer have a dog, and my wife refuses to let me train our cats to track).
From an evasion perspective there’s a lot of misinformation and Hollywood garbage about escaping tracking dogs that’s just not true, but there are a few basics that can increase your chances of evading if you’re being tracked by dogs:
- Physical fitness – While dogs tend to be fast sprinters, humans are capable of being much better long-distance runners. If you can maintain a fast pace for a long time you can increase your chances of outrunning the dog and their handler and increasing your lead, which in turn increases the chance of breaking your trail.
- Terrain – Us two-legged humans can handle some types of rugged terrain like steep climbs, deep snow, heavy mud, etc. a lot better than dogs, so taking a route that requires climbing, rappelling, snowshoeing, bridging a ravine, etc. can help you extend your lead over a tracking dog.
- Water – Since dogs can track humans using shed skin cells that float around, simply crossing a stream or river probably won’t do much to shake a tracking dog; however, if you can cross a large body of water or raft down a river for a couple of miles you can make it a lot harder for the people with the dog to follow.
- Odors – Given the sensitivity of a dog’s sense of smell, it’s almost impossible to cover your scent enough to lose a well-trained tracking dog. However, you may be able to delay a dog by spreading a strong scent like pure Capsaicin powder along your trail at regular intervals. Note that pure Capsaicin powder can cause severe discomfort or injury to both people and dogs, so this should only be used in emergency situations.
There are also various options available such as booby traps that can interrupt or delay trackers and dogs, but I’ll leave it up to the reader to research those themselves.
Kit
There are several pieces of kit that can aid both trackers and trackees:
- Optics – A good set of binoculars or a monocular can be useful to spot someone from a distance, either to keep track of them visually or to spot someone following you. It may also help a tracker spot sign from a greater distance.
- Thermal Vision – Thermal vision can be useful for spotting residual heat such as footprints left behind by a trackee, depending on environmental conditions and the quality of the optic. It can also be useful for spotting warm bodies at a distance, even in daylight.
- Night vision – A quality set of night vision optics can allow you to move at night, enabling you to either gain on a trackee or to extend your lead over a tracker. Note that most night vision devices don’t provide a lot of resolution or contrast, which makes it a lot harder to spot sign if you’re trying to track someone.
- Drone – A drone can give you a perspective from a higher altitude, allowing you to spot someone at a much greater distance. You don’t necessarily need a $500 drone package to take advantage of the technology – a small $30 pocket-sized model with a 1080p or 4K camera, 7-8 minutes flight time and a 100’ range can provide a pretty good view from 50’ in the air, and many of the smaller ones can be controlled directly with a cell phone, eliminating the need to carry a separate controller. Most of the small ones come with spare batteries and a USB charger, greatly extending your observation time.
- Sound Amplification – A hearing amplifier like the Walker’s Game Ear [3] can help you detect human sounds from a much greater distance.
- Flashlight – A quality white light can help a tracker continue to follow sign in low-light situations, and a good night vision-preserving flashlight can allow a trackee to extend their lead by continuing to move even at night. Note that contrary to popular myth, red is not the best color for preserving night vision – green or blue are much better colors for that. I like to carry the Streamlight Sidewinder aviation [4] model for night work, since it provides both a green as well as a blue light. When I don’t want to be spotted I clip the light onto my belt buckle, keeping it low and reducing the chances of it being spotted at a distance.
- Flotation – A portable raft like the Klymit Li [1]te [1]water Dinghy [1] or an inflatable flotation vest and some trash bags can allow you to leverage water obstacles to avoid trackers.
- Camouflage – Blending in to the environment can enhance your ability to avoid being spotted, either as a tracker or a trackee. If you can’t wear camo clothing you can carry something like a camouflage poncho, camouflage oversuit or ghillie suit and put them on when you need them.
- Tripwire Alarm – A personal alarm [5] attached to a tree with a line connected to the pull pin and stretched across your back-path can alert you to the fact someone is following you. The alarms are super loud, and you can usually find them for $2-$4 apiece.
- Rope/Climbing Gear – Depending on the terrain in your area, having the ability to climb over or rappel down steep terrain can potentially extend your lead over someone tracking you, or allow you to keep up with a trackee.
- Terrain maps – As I’ve mentioned several times, knowing the terrain for the area you’re operating in can be a huge advantage for both trackers and trackees.
- Footwear – Those high-speed low-drag combat boots with Super Grip soles might be just the thing for combat ops in the jungle, but they’re more likely to leave very distinct footprints that make you easier to track. Shoes or boots with less aggressive tread patterns are less likely to leave obvious sign. An inexpensive pair of slip-on shoe covers or rain shoes/boots can not only help keep your feet dry, they can soften and change your footprint, making you harder to track.
- Weather Meter – Given that weather can play a huge role in both tracking and evading, having the ability to accurately predict the weather can provide a big advantage for both trackers and trackees. A portable weather meter like those made by Kestrel [6] can significantly improve the accuracy of your weather predictions.