EHH I agree and passed this thread a few times before deciding to post on it.

The fact is, that I don't leave the ground without a safety harness, even when using a ladder stand. I have a couple of
30' ladders that have drawn comments concerning MY safety.

Riding my four wheeler to my stand site is more dangerous than hunting high if done properly. If not so, tree surgeons would all die young, because they log a ton of hours above 40'.

I once set up a 15' double ladder on the edge of a cutover on a club I hunted. I shot a couple of nice deer there and it became one of the most popular stands on the club. No one else was shooting anything much there though, so they lost interest. For four years running I shot at least one good buck there. What they didn't know was that the ladder was only a platform from which I could attach one of my climbers. I would climb the back of the tree so that it didn't tear up the bark much on the front side. I attached a couple of removable steps to get in the climber. I put the ladder up because the tree was too big in diameter at the ground to attach my climber. I was able to climb an additional 35'-40' or so above the ladder and see into a swag the deer were traveling through the cut. Even after they found rub marks from the climber I was using, only one other guy was willing to climb there. That guy was and still is a tree crew supervisor. He and I actually built a platform stand that was literally 50' to the floor of it in a huge Hickory. There was lot's of rope and rigging involved it that.

This may seem a little shocking to some reading this, but I always felt safe through every minute of it. Being high allowed me to be virtually scent free and I could see the curvature of the earth. Just kidding, but my buddy and I could see WAY more of the cutovers than everyone else. We shot more than our share in those two places.

Alright let those with Acrophobia and the haters start chewing me a new one.