I am a new Summit Viper owner, and I have to say that I have been a little bit frustrated with it. I bought mine on September 12th and have used it maybe 8 times so far.

They are very comfortable, but there are some draw backs that I have found that annoy me in the morning when I'm trying to set it up. The first are the three hooks on the two bungee cords that on this thing. There are two hooks on the bungee that attaches the seat back to the tree and one on the bungee that you use for locking you feet into the stirrups. They simply get caught on everything while you're trying to unpack it and get it set up. I am constantly fighting those things and cussing them under my breath as I try to get it packed or unpacked. The climbing cables are nice, but they bend in every direction with equal ease, so trying to get them wrapped around the tree and grabbing them on the other side can be a bit of a chore, because they want to bend downward and not necessarily swing easily around the tree. Maybe I was spoiled with the old metal band of my Loggy. It only flexed one way so getting it to swing around the tree was a breeze.

The other small complaint I have shouldn't really be a complaint, because it speaks to their safety, but the 'V' bars grip so well into the tree that you sort of have to fight it sometimes (probably 50% of the time or more) to get it to let go of the tree while you're climbing. After wrestling with the hooks in the early morning, this is the sort of thing that just pushes me closer to the edge of frustration.

However, when I finally get it up in the tree and sit down, I start to forget about my frustration as I sit in a seat more comfortable than many chairs in my house.

That's my 2 cents. I was hoping that the Viper would be my last treestand, but I don't know if that's the case or not. The bad part about buying treestands any more is that there are few places that will actually let you 'test drive' a couple. They're all hanging up on a pole in the show room and all you can do is look at them.

-Brad

PS. One other small frustration is that the climbing cables stick out from your back and below your butt as you're backpacking the thing, and if you're hunting rough terrain with a lot of deadfall, small saplings, thick brush, etc. they tend to get caught on this stuff every now and then, yanking you backwards and throwing you off balance.