Hawk Circle Wilderness Education

The Cape Cod Tracking Expedition

with Ricardo Sierra

April 12-18, 2009

Cost: $595

Location: Falmouth, and places all over the Cape.

Tracking is an essential skill to anyone looking to get close to nature, or practice wilderness living. Tracking keeps us safe, helps us find food, discover the stories written on the earth that open our world to include the wildlife around us. Ancient people’s depended on their scouts and trackers to find game, wild edible plants, medicines, shelter locations and to keep everyone safe.

However, learning to track can be confusing to say the least. Books hold tremendous knowledge, but to translate that into practical effective skill, field work is key.

In this intensive workshop, participants will learn almost exclusively in the field, practicing track aging, track identification, trailing and following, as well as animal gait patterns and behavior. We will work in many different mediums that are offered on the Cape so beautifully, from beach sand, gravel, grasses, moss, thick leaf and pine needle forest litter to clay and mud.

Emphasis is on providing each student with practices that dramatically improve his or her skills of seeing and finding tracks. We will track along beaches, pine or oak forests, gravel beds, waterways and saltwater marshes as well as open areas and park preserves.

Housing is included and we will make simple meals served family style and split the cost among the participants, to keep our food costs low. No special gear is necessary, but a small amount of spending money may be helpful to cover snacks or meals on the road.

• Track Aging

• Track Identification

• Animal Behavior

• Track Patterns

• Tracking and Trailing in Varied Soils

• Track Interpretation and Storytelling

• Landscape Tracking

• The Art of Questioning

• Plant and Tree Identification

• Human Tracking/Search & Rescue

• Scout Skills, Awareness & Observation

• Exploring and Wandering

No prior training is required for this course, but some familiarity with animals and the outdoors is helpful. Bring a sense of humor and a positive attitude along with a desire to learn in the field!

Ricardo has been tracking since he was very small, on the desert sands of Mexico and California to the high plateaus of New Mexico and Arizona. He has tracked and studied wildlife in the Eastern Woodland Forests as well as the High Plains. He leads a strong program that will help you grow as a tracker in a very short time!

More about Tracking:

Learning the art of tracking is like learning a foreign language from a visual perspective. There are nuances to how the earth has moved beneath claw, toe, hoof or foot that make a world of difference in understanding both where animals (and people) have gone, what they have done and where they might go next. It is a science that native people knew well. Once you understand certain patterns or phrases, you can begin to read the landscape, from haltingly to a fluent connection that is seamless and illuminating!

Fluency is our goal in this weeklong intensive, as we move from soil medium and location to the next, each time gaining more vocabulary, more dialect and direct contact with the earth.

Field tracking and study is intense, so we have arranged to stay in a beautiful rental house rather than camp, to give us the space to relax, study, prepare meals and share our stories. Food will be prepared by the group, and we will pack lunches for each day’s outing at different locations throughout the Cape, which offers a wealth of terrain that is perfect for training trackers of all levels.

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