Countertracking means reducing and concealing one's own signs and diverting pursuers through misleading tracks. During military evasion to avoid capture, it aims to make the actual movement harder to reconstruct or encourage an incorrect interpretation of direction. The English term belongs to US military vocabulary.
Reducing signs: limit disturbance of the ground
A footprint forms when a sole presses into the ground or changes its surface. Firm, load-bearing footing can limit the depression. Placing the foot without scraping or sliding sideways produces fewer additional scuff and displacement marks. This also means leaving ground litter, small stones and fallen wood in place as far as possible: the damp underside of an overturned stone can create a colour contrast even when no sole pattern remains.
The actual properties of the surface matter. A sole or hand can scrape moss from a solid rock; a footprint can form on a rotting log. Choosing a foothold therefore involves its load-bearing capacity, loose surface material and vegetation together.
Vegetation contact: restore its position rather than damage it
In vegetation, limiting contact can reduce the signs left behind. A walking stick can part plants and push them back into their original position instead of breaking branches, leaves or grass. Broken parts remain as altered shapes. Where leaves have a paler underside, a twisted leaf also produces a colour contrast; a strip of such disturbance may stand out in dense growth more readily than a single depression in the ground.
Grasping small trees or bushes can scuff their bark and make the vegetation move visibly. Contact with snow-covered vegetation can shake off snow, creating a sequence of bare patches that highlights the route. Reducing signs therefore also concerns hands, the upper body and equipment.
Masking signs: conceal an existing mark
Covering a footprint with leaves, dirt or brush changes its visible form. The exposed sole pattern is obscured. The moved litter can also become a sign: damp leaves change their visible colour, twisted leaves expose different surfaces, and an uneven covering contrasts with its surroundings. Assessment therefore concerns the whole disturbed contact area, including colour and material distribution.
Lighting also affects recognition. Footprints in the shade of vegetation or fallen wood may stand out less clearly. Their physical form remains. As the shadow moves with the sun, different edges and surfaces of the print become illuminated.
False-trail deception: suggest the wrong direction of movement
False-trail deception seeks to make a person infer an incorrect course of movement from signs they can see. Walking backwards is one example: the toe ends of the sole impressions point opposite to the person's actual progress. If a pursuer reads that orientation as forward movement, it provides false directional information.
The movement also changes other features. In yielding ground, the heel impression may be deeper than the ball of the foot; the spacing between prints is shorter in the described backward movement. These features may reveal that the sign formed differently.
Signs beside the prints also matter. Bent branches and trampled grass may indicate the actual direction of movement; further contact points continue the route. An interpretation based on a single sole pattern can therefore conflict with the surrounding signs. False-trail deception targets a particular interpretation, while a tracker may also assess how the signs fit together.
Visible signs and scent information
In US military terminology, visual tracking interprets signs on the ground and vegetation. Scent tracking instead follows the odours produced by a person. Covering a sole pattern changes the visible source of information; the person's release of odour is a different process.
The same applies to reversed sole orientation: its deceptive effect concerns visually reading the impression. In scent tracking, information comes from the person and their actual passage.
The trail leading to a hide site
During evasion, the approach to a hide site, a concealed place to stay, is particularly significant. A sequence of footprints, displaced litter and damaged vegetation can connect the movement route to that location. Repeated local movement can develop a recognisable access path.
Entrances and exits therefore use existing vegetation and terrain features that need as little alteration as possible. Preparation of the occupied site is also kept to a minimum. Concealment at the site and signs on the approach are assessed together: screening the body serves a different function from limiting the clues that can lead someone to it.