Rezendes calls this kind of ramble, "putting in your dirt time": honing in on signs left by bears; learning to read their digs, bites, and scat; layering all of that data in our storehouse of bear knowledge. As we advance our skills, we won't depend on luck to find bear signs. We'll understand bear behavior, and we'll know instinctively where to look.

"We aren't tracking down the bear from one spot to another, but we are tracking the bear," says Rezendes. "By reading these signs, we're getting a picture of the bear's movement and behavior. How it feeds. Where it holes up. How it interacts with other bears. We're tracking the life of the bear -- its whole life process."

Once You've Learned, You Unlearn

We work our way to the top of the ridge and turn east. Several of us head into a grove of towering old-growth hemlock -- magnificent trees that are more than 200 years old -- and here we hit the mother lode. "If bears have a sacred place," says Rezendes, "we're about to enter it."

The largest of the hemlocks are gouged out with claw marks, where bears have torn off chunks of bark. Some of these marks are quite old, indicating that bears have been returning here for many years.

But what do these markings mean? Do bears claw as high as they can to show their dominance and power? Or are they using the trees as giant scent posts, to attract potential mates or warn off other bears?

Rezendes cautions us against overtheorizing. Trying to think our way to the answers, he warns, will throw us off the track. As we become better skilled at tracking, we must fight the tendency to intellectualize. In a sense, we must unlearn what we've learned, and let the answers come to us.

To illustrate his point, Rezendes tells a story. He was leading a tracking class in Cape Cod's dunes, and the class came across a set of strange markings in the sand -- four wispy, arcing lines that described a half circle. The students surmised that the markings were tracks and set about trying to identify the animal that had made them.

They had been tracking fox, and some students theorized that the marks may have been made by a fox's tail swishing back and forth. Others thought that a hawk had swooped low for prey, and its wing had brushed the sand.

"I told them to leave their intellect out of it -- because their intellect will lead them astray," Rezendes recalls. "So we sat silently, we watched, and we waited. Suddenly, the breeze picked up, and someone noticed that a patch of grass was blowing back and forth across the sand. It was the grass that had made those marks! If you stay alert and stay open to the possibility that you might be wrong, you'll learn something."

Point well taken. Not looking for answers, I look hard at one of the chewed-up hemlocks before me. And there, caught in a crease of bark, I find a small clump of bear fur; its long, black strands are tipped with a touch of blonde.

Immerse yourself in the sign of the bear, Rezendes tells us, and in some fundamental way you participate in the life of the bear. As I drive home later that night, the tuft of fur tucked in my shirt pocket, I am sure of one thing: I have connected with that bear.

Bill Breen (bbreen@fastcompany.com) is a senior editor at Fast Company. Associate Editor Heath Row (hrow@fastcompany.com) contributed the sidebars. Contact Paul Rezendes by phone (978-249-8810) or on the Web (www.mossbrook.com/rez).

Action Item: Tracking Trackers

You'll cover more ground when you track with a group of people. A good way to find fellow trackers is to point your browser to the Tracker/Survival Club Listing, a no-frills directory of more than 27 groups that gather to teach and practice animal tracking.

One of the more in-depth and up-to-date directories of tracker clubs online, Tracker Listing includes groups from California to Switzerland. Many of the entries have links to the clubs' individual Web pages, which provide additional information. But do your due diligence before you join one.

Coordinates: Tracker/Survival Club Listing, http://koransky.com/Trackers/TrackerClubs.html

Sidebar: Prints in Print

A field guide to tracking is a critical tool for identifying tracks and learning about animals. Before you head for the woods, consider getting one of these books for your pack.

Filled with detailed illustrations and evocative color photographs, Paul Rezendes's book Tracking & the Art of Seeing teaches as much through its images as it does through its words. Rezendes discusses 10 animal families, from rodents to bears. The new second edition adds quick-reference charts on trail patterns and a chapter on birds.

Coordinates: $24.00. Harper Re-source, www.harpercollins.com