Outward Bound's (OB) youth programs challenge youth to face their fears by engaging them on two-story high ropes courses, urban orienteering, and on multi-day wilderness expeditions. Despite research on OB's social and personal benefits, or the relationships among participants, there are no studies involving OBs participants' sensory experiences. This thesis explores the haptic geography of OB programs, how the human and non-human relationships perform as one, and the sensuous experiences of the tactile, the proprioceptive, and more importantly the awareness of moving through the environment in a new way. Not only are the participants part of the OB experiential education concept---learning by doing---they are learning to be aware of the body-subject relationship and the linked emotions of their exterior world to their interior, affective world. Ultimately, I point to an understanding of how participants relate to their haptic experiences and their emotional awareness while moving through the spatial context of OB's programs.
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