So you guys can get 20ft. with a set of 3 lone wolf climbing sticks? Thats the reason I hadn't got any yet, I just figured they'd only be good for 14 or 15 feet unless you bought the extension.

14 or 15ft. tops with 3 sticks most likely.

I've been doing it wrong for the last 25+ years! I still use the same folding screw-in steps I originally bought and still carry the stand on my back until I'm at the correct height to set it. This year, for the first time, I used a lineman's belt when setting a couple stands that will stay all season, but most of the time I set up a stand and hunt it immediately. I've been extreemly fortunate, I know.

I didn't read all the posts, but I use a Lone Wolf hang-on with strap on steps. It works great if you have climbing loops on your harness. easy to slip a rope around a tree, lean back and install your stand. Its quiet, quick, and very portable so you can change locations quickly to react to the deer movement. It changed my deer hunting for ever.

If I'm hanging a hang on it's going to have to have some type of haul line available to pull up my bow. SO, I tie a haul line to the stand and the other end to my belt. I climb the tree putting up the sticks or whatever wearing my climbing belt or HSS vest. When I get to where I want I usually screw in a step to temporarily hold the stand. I pull the stand up and then hang it. I shorten the haul line to the proper length and I'm done.

If you really stretch the distance out you can get almost 20 ft. I put the bottom one up kind of high to begin with and pull myself up on to it. The next one I put so that the lower peg is high enough so that I barely get my foot to it. Same with the next stick. Then, if using my LW stand I put it a couple of feet above the last stick.

Sometimes I will screw in two tree steps at the bottom of the tree before using the sticks and that gains another few feet.

I just went ahead and bought a fourth stick...

LOL yeah, I actually have 6 but I was answering for the guys that only want to use 3. I generally will take three if I know where I am going but do take four on occasion.

I'd be afraid to do that. I always like to step down onto a platform than try to pull up onto it or from lower like that. It must be pretty solid to do that I'm guessing?

I also always use my bow pull cord to haul the stand up from the ground once I'm at the right height. I've never tried carrying one up on my back.

This is a great thread. I'm in my forties and just this year got some LW sticks. I don't like to put large gaps between the sticks...when descending in the dark I prefer to have the next stick down at a gap that replicates the distance between the steps on the sticks. Due to this I purchased a 5th stick. This allows me to get up a decent elevation and have nice even spacing between the steps and also be able to have the very top stick so that its well above the platform - Randy