I have my brother and my friend help out. We only use hang-on stands with climbing sticks..then a few screw steps to bring the overall height of the stand to roughly 20 feet.

With the 3 of us, it takes about 30 minutes total.

Being a lineman myself one trick that we do when we climb and have work to do on a pole,and this can apply to hanging stands,is climb a bit higher and work below yourself,kind of like a workbench height.Body possitioning is important.It's not a bad idea to bring another stacking stick or screw in steps along.and work the tree from the other side,also it doesn't hurt to drive a nail or screw a step in temporarly hold the stand as you affix the ratcheting strap.you can drive a screwdriver in the tree too.Bill D>

update:

Well I appreciate your advice, I tried a couple of ideas this weekend. Here is what worked really well for me.

Climbing sticks: amazingly fast and easy, problem: easy to steal [:@]

someone also recommended I go to walmart and get a ratching pulley. I couldn't find it at walmart so I went to Lowes and got the one that would do 250 pounds for $10 and 100' of 3/8 rope for another $10.

I put the sticks up. using a lineman's harness where I could be hands free I put a screw into the side of the tree above where I wanted to hang the stand. I attached the pulley to the step, went down and pulled the stand up. I then climbed back up and attached the stand to the tree. The next was to add an additional ratching strap to really cinch it against the tree.

I did put up a buddy ladder stand with my cousin this weekend. That is by far the fastest stand to put up (and take down for the thief).

Thanks again for the advice.

Steve