“Blanking” one’s tracks

I'm not sure if there's a word describing the physical action of walking over your own footprints to obfuscate them, however, to fill in the blank in your quote:

“The boy took a strange path through the trees, circling back to the same spot every so often. I couldn’t tell if it was intentional, an effort to ___________ his tracks, or if he was truly lost”

The most common idiom here is 'cover his tracks'.

This phrase is not necessarily used as a physical description - one can cover their tracks in all sorts of situations. For example, one may 'cover their tracks' by deleting emails, creating an alibi, or, as in your sentence, deliberately walking in a confusing pattern to throw off trackers.