RE: falling from stand
I know I'm very fortunate to have been hunting since "before" portable stands were even on the market and have yet to fall from a tree. I can say that the older I get the more careful I am including using a harness now in every treestand I go into. I just can't imagine not being able to hunt the rest of my life because I didn't take the extra couple of minutes to tie in to my stand. Like you said, be carefule out there and use the safety equipment correctly, there was a hunter last fall that fell and hung upside down from his stand and died there. That tells me that the safety belt was too low on the body. Good luck.