Thanks for the input! I had some BPS cards and bought a Summit Viper SD, the "Crush" series. It's a little roomier than the regular Viper and only a pound more and has a foot rest. Gonna put it together tonight and looking forward to my first sit in a new stand in over 10 years.

Dr. B

What kind of trees are summits not designed to climb? Tall ones? I know you like your TW, but you sound like a crack addict talking about your summit. You know it's bad for you but your gonna make up reasons to believe you should still use it. A climber not designed to climb a certain species of trees is a joke. Keep telling your self summits are safer but after this rain with slick bark which stand would you take to the woods with you?

If you had to trust your life to one climber which would you choose

So overall which one is safer is all hunting situations? That's my point? I'm not saying summits are a death trap but why settle for anything less than the best? Like I said before if you don't care about safety get you a summit measure every tree you want to climb first, make sure it's only a pine tree( sure hate for you guys hunting in the mountains, or hunting acorns, or creek bottoms where pines don't grow), test the moisture level of the bark....

Just use your tree walker and don't worry.

If you had to trust your life to one climber which would you choose

Ive hunted out of a few of the major stands on the market, and they all have their pros & cons. I can shimmy up a tree quicker and more quiet in my ol man than in any other stand. Its comfortable enough, but you just cant beat the quality and comfort of the summit. Im hunting this morning in my brand new titan, and its like sitting in my recliner. Its a little tougher to climb because it bites a tree so good (which is a good thing) but once your settled in, you can sit all day no problem. This Titan is my 4th different summit (180 max,razor,older sit and climb, titan), and my favorite so far. Still havent tried the treewalker brand, but i hope to try one soon just to say i did.

I saw on here the other week from the ATA show that Summit is putting the mesh seats like Milleniums on their climbers. If I was you I might wait until they come out and try one of them. Most comfortable seat out there IMO.

Treewalker fans. Not that I have anything against the stand and I'm sure it's a good one, but I have a few questions. Especially since someone said that you didn't value your safety unless you hunted out of a treewalker.


1. I've noticed that you sit almost level with the upper portion of the stand and there is little to no side protection on the treewalker. How is this safer in comparison to the Summit.

Treewalker



Summit




2. The cable latching system. Pin type systems can fail. I've seen one in an Ol Man break (one of my buddies swears by Ol Man).

Treewalker cable latch system.





Summit cable latch system.





3. Climbing. Looking at the below pics, it looks like there is not much difference between the two as far as climbing. With the Summit you sit on the rail even with the top of the climber. With the Treewalker you sit on the mesh seat even with the top rail. Not a lot of difference there.

Summit



Treewalker




4. It was stated earlier in the thread that you could climb a smaller diameter tree in a Treewalker than you could in a Summit. Climbing smaller diameter trees is actually far MORE dangerous than climbing bigger trees. I'm not convinced that the TreeWalker can climb a smaller tree because I have climbed some trees with my Summit and if they were much smaller I would have been afraid to climb it. I'm definitely not seeing much of a safety advantage there.


So convince me they are safer because I'm leaning towards people just talking out of personal preference rather than facts about one being "safer" than the other.