CHRISTINA EICHELKRAUT / PVT Man-trackers find a stone that had been stepped on and pushed into the hard desert surface, cracking it and indicating clearly where a human had trod. CHRISTINA EICHELKRAUT / PVT LeRoy Beadle marks report's footprint during a tracking exercise in Pahrump. Advertisement

This reporter was being sought by certified man-trackers.

Judy Pufky, secretary of Pahrump's Search and Rescue (SAR) team, along with Pat Clow and LeRoy Beadle, also members of SAR, had given me a five-minute head start to walk into the desert anywhere I chose, not watching where I was going.

Then they started to look for me.

Man-tracking is a technique used for finding people based on their footprints, how they disturb the environment around them, and various other clues people can leave behind them wherever they go, even without realizing it.

There are different types of man-tracking, with techniques designed to accommodate specific tasks and environments. There is tactical man-tracking, used in combat situations, SAR tracking, tracking designed specifically for law enforcement, urban man tracking, and animal tracking.

In the recent search for the suspect in the late August shooting of a Nye County Sheriff's Office deputy, a man tracker was brought in to help.

Crouched behind a bush in the desert behind the fire department and the SAR unit on Basin Avenue, I began to realize that it was true: You leave tracks wherever you go.

The ground around me was becoming more visible somehow, which reminded me of something Clow had told me in an earlier interview, when she was asked about learning how to man-track.

"I think the hardest thing is teaching your eyes to be able to see something, instead of just looking," Clow had said.

Pufky had added that, when it came to tracking, "The main thing is to be very, very observant."

The longer I sat there, the more I began to see the difference between natural divots in the ground and places where other people or animals may have stepped. Small clumps that I might have dismissed as pebbles a few days ago began to become distinct from one another as animal droppings or small bits of twigs. It was like a blurred image abruptly coming in to focus, and suddenly it seemed as though I had left an incredibly obvious track.

I was right. Within 11 minutes, the tracking team was close enough to me that I could hear their voices drifting over.

"There she is, right there," said Pufky, pointing at a track (which in tracking terms is called a sign) that I had left behind.

Pufky at the time was a flanker, one of the people that search the area behind the lead tracker, or point person.

A tracking team is usually made up of three people who start at the last known place the person they are searching for was seen, ideally finding a sign such as a shoe print.

They search in a triangular formation, with the point person in the lead and a flanker on either side and slightly behind them.

The point person is constantly paying attention to the area in front of them, focusing on the "prime sign area" (the tracks identified as that suspect's or victim's), looking only about 18 to 20 inches ahead of them at a time.

The flankers examine the areas behind and around the point person, looking for intersecting tracks or possible dangers that the point person, being focused on the area directly in front of them, might not see.

The point person "could walk into a ditch, an open hole, they're only looking down," explained Pufky.

When the first sign is located, a sketch is then made of it with identifying characteristics, such as a diamonds or squares on the sole of a shoe, drawn in. The print is then measured from heel to toe, and the width of the heel and the width of the upper part of the print.

Also measured, based on the tracks, is the length of a person's stride.

A lot of information can be garnered from even this basic material. The length of a person's stride can tell once a sign is located, a tracking stick is used to find the next probable location of another sign.

A tracking stick is any long, straight device with several rubber bands or ties around it used to mark measurements. Although they can purchased for as much as $85 at Wal-Mart, a person can use any kind of straight tool available. In fact, one of the most common tracking sticks is a ski pole with the basket removed.

But tracking is much more than just following footprints, especially since footprints are not always readily available.

Because a person walking on baked sand or stone does not leave any prints, other signs can be vital.

"You're hoping they step off rocks and break vegetation," Pufky said. "They could break vegetation not even on the ground but on a tree ... you'll see something broken, like a twig or a branch."

A sign can be just about anything, from smushed grass to cigarette butts, candy wrappers or other litter.

As Clow explained it, "You're looking for things that are out of place."

She pointed out that prints can even be found on pavement if the person had previously been traveling on a different surface.

"You can actually find footprints on a sidewalk, because of transfer, if their shoes are dirty," said Clow.

Clow and Pufky have used their man-tracking training on several occasions.

Clow described a time the team was sent out to search for a man with Alzheimer's who had wandered off.

"He'd walked away and we started tracking the man, a good two miles," Clow said. "He came up on the fence line, turned, followed the fence and went back ... so a couple of us jump-tracked him, and we found him at a house in the backyard, standing there trying to get water out of a spigot that the well was shut off on."

It was a good example of how the more a tracker knows about the person they are searching for, the more efficiently they can find him.

"An Alzheimer's patient or a child will not follow a straight path," explained Pufky. "They wander more. And a child with a disability, a change from gravel to road will stop them."

There are even ways to determine if a person being tracked is attempting to cover tracks, which in some cases only leaves a more obvious trail to follow.

"Sometimes it's easier," Pufky said. "A heel print will be deeper than a toe print, so you kind of tell if they're walking backwards."

Clow and Pufky both say that tracking is a valuable tool for search and rescue personnel.

"All search and rescue personnel need to be at least track-aware, so if you're out on a scene, you don't mess up what's there," said Clow. "There's nothing worse for a tracker than to show up and have all the prints mangled."

Man-tracking is useful for search and rescue operations because it helps to cut down a search area and the time it takes to find the person.

"It knocks your search area down," Clow said. "Because if you know the direction they're going, you just took a two-mile radius and cut it down to a quarter of that."

And whatever one may see in the movies, man-tracking is not easy or quick.

"It is not easy, and you do need training," Pufky emphasized. "You're using your brain a lot, too. It takes math, science, a little bit of everything. You have to be very aware of everything around you, and your senses get finely tuned."

"You watch TV and you got this guy riding 900 miles an hour on his horse and looking down and saying, 'Yup, that's it,'" Clow said. "That does not work. Now I look at that and say, 'Uh-huh, sure.'"