Woodlore Team Tracking with Ray Mears

Join Ray and take the opportunity to learn from a professional tracker in the beautiful forests and fields of Suffolk where in the first phase of the course we will teach you basic navigation, how to live light on the trail, the use of various forms of communication and how to operate as a close team. We shall then move on to understanding what sign is and how to interpret what we see, hear and smell. Finally, how to employ your new-found skills within a small tracking team.

The second phase of the course will be an intense, exciting and testing live trail exercise over multiple days through some of the most stunning landscapes the East of England has to offer. Based on real life events taken from many operations where time and again trackers have proved their worth, completely immersive and on an unprecedented scale you will truly live the life of the tracker.

Tracking has been employed by many different people and agencies in order to greatly reduce search times for those who are lost, to locate those who do not want to be found and gain understanding of their activities long before laying eyes on them. Whether involved in wildlife watching or photography, conservation, wildlife management and protection, law enforcement or military operations, tracking will greatly enhance your ability to locate and observe your quarry and is in daily use with counter poaching teams to protect Elephant, Rhino and other endangered species.

Being a tracker is more than the in-depth knowledge of sign. You must be comfortable living light on the trail, able to maintain a clear, calm and questioning mind even when the work is hard. The tracker must be honest, inquisitive, tenacious and dependable, able to sustain and maintain themselves and their equipment whether supported or not and be waterproof in mind and body.

Some of the skills covered in this course include:

• Visual tracking
• Spoor finding, indentifying and following
• Aids to vision
• Observation
• Tracking team strategy, tactics, organisation and control
• Basic navigation
• Field craft
• Nature awareness
• Communication
• How to live light on the trail

This course starts at 17:30 on Sunday and will finish at 16:00 on Saturday.

Catering

This course is self-catering, so please bring enough food for the duration with a stove and fuel to cook it on. You will require food that is easy to cook and light, while still providing the energy needed for the day, such as walking rations. These can be bought as individual meals or full 24 hour packs, you will also require brew kit such as sachets of coffee or tea bags and powdered milk all stored in a box or dry bag marked with your name as we will transport the majority of your rations for you.

We will provide fresh drinking water in jerry cans.

Course Site

The Woodlore Team Tracking course will be run from a light fly camp in Suffolk, close to Thetford forest. The course is situated in beautiful private estate with no public access with lots of wildlife including deer, owls, badgers, fox and butterflies. We do not have shower/toilet blocks at our sites, therefore all aspects of the course will have a fantastic wilderness feel.

We have a car park at the course site where you your car will be kept during the course (if you bring one).

Other Details

Joining instructions will be sent to participants of the course 9 weeks before it is due to start, giving details of where to meet, at what time, and what to bring with you.