RE: falling from stand
I wear my climbing harness
I have lines run up all of my trees and I use an accender on the way up and a prusic on the way down. You could use a Prusic loop both ways. If anyone wants to know about how to use this stop by a climbing center and tell them :
#1 tie the line at the top and the bottom of the tree, leave a little slack so that it is away from the tree about 6 - 12 in at most when pulled straight out from the tree.
#2 go to REI or Gallyans or other climbing store and tell them that you need a prusic loop about 4' in diameter.
#3 ask them how to tie it onto your tree lines. It's easy to see it and do it but hard to explain. but you have this prusic loop of rope and you wrap it around the other rope 2 times and then back though so that there are 4 winds around the up and down rope.
#4 use a CLIMBING carabiner to hook the prusic onto your harness.
#5 as you go up you slide the winds up as you go. IF you fell it would tighten up on the rope and you would hang by the loop.
#6 on the way down it should slide with you as you go. Again if you fell it would tighten up on the up/down rope and you would not hit the ground at 7.62 feet per second squared.
This also solves the problem of tieing onto the tree every time and untieing. You can just leave the prusic hooked onto the tree rope. Slide it up above you and give it a tug. It will tighten up and stay there.
Even with my climber or just ladder steps. I have a loop that goes around the tree when I get to the top and then tie on when I get up there. It sounds complecated but it's not when you are used to it. Also it protects me on the way up and down.