I've been hunting for nearly 30 years now and have climbed in and out of a tree hundreds of times and have never had a close call - until last night. There's been numerous threads on this subject, but I thought I'd post this out here to possibly help others. A member of this board, VC1111, posted a thread on tree stand safety a couple years ago in which I followed his advice. Last night it paid off.

Rather than climbing in and out of a tree untethered and attaching a safety harness once in the stand, I switched to a system that is inexpensive yet extremely effective. The system is a long large diameter rope (1") attached to the base of the tree running up the tree and attached above the stand. Before climbing the tree you attach your harness to this ascending/descending rope via either a smaller diameter rope with a prusik knot or a more expensive climbing device called a climbing ascender. I chose the prusik knot for economy.

Prusik knot:
http://www.survivaltopics.com/surviv...a-prusik-knot/

This knot easily slides along the rope but once pressure is applied, it grabs the larger rope. By keeping the prusik knot above your head at all times during ascending/descending, if a fall occurs, it grabs you promptly.

Yesterday afternoon we had a snow storm which dumped a bunch of wet heavy snow. I hunted last night in this mess which left the steps rather slippery. I was on my way down the tree when my right foot slipped off the peg. At the time my left hand was reaching for the next peg down. I tried to hold on with my right hand but it also slipped off the peg. Gravity promptly took over and I was on my down. The prusik knot (kept above my head) instantly grabbed and I was held securely as I got myself back onto the steps. This occurred at about 15 feet up. Falling from that height would not have been cool.

So, for just a few bucks, you can easily make your hunting experience far more secure by always being attached rather than ascending/descending without being attached to a safety system.