Rarely does the BowCountry.com test team come across a product that we all immediately agree on. Someone always has to nit pick. Someone always has to feel responsible to point out even the tiniest flaw in design, construction or cosmetic appearance. It's just the way we are and we feel we owe it to you to consider EVERYTHING. Let's talk about the Lone Wolf Alpha Hand Climber tree stand and start with two words: Buy it!
The journey to Lone Wolf started with our local archery shop in Tully, N.Y, Legends of Fall. Owner, Jeff Bordwell has a fantastic operation at Legends and does a fair amount of field tuning for the BowCountry.com staff. When we take bows into the field we always like to make sure we are "dialed in". Jeff has many years under his belt, a great indoor range and we trust the guy with our lives. He sets up our bows from time to time! Anyway, Jeff raved about the Lone Wolf Alpha Hand Climber tree stand and we just had to give it a try.
You wouldn't naturally think that the word innovation necessarily applies to the tree stand industry. Tube frame, angle frame, mesh platform, hand climber, sit & climb. Sheesh! We've seen 'em all and probably tried 'em all at one time or another. This isn't a broad stroke industry slam. Occasionally, someone either enters the market with a radically new idea or an existing player like API. 'Ol Man or Loggy Bayou blows us away with something that actually works for us in the field. There's some key words for ya, "in the field".
Well in 1999 along came this guy named Andrae who decided he had a better "mouse trap" and he called his version "Lone Wolf". The BowCountry.com "Test and Tune" team contacted owner Andrae D'Aquisto and like most manufacturers who actually believe in and stand behind their products was eager to ship us a Lone Wolf Alpha Hand Climber. When the box arrived, we all looked at it and said "That's it?!" We had received other tree stand products in the past that required the UPS guy to use a two-wheeler and multiple boxes just to get it in the door. The UPS guy had this box tucked under his arm! What gives? Where's the rest of it?
Herein lies a major point to consider: The profile of this unit against your back (a mere 2.5 inches flat against your back) above your head and to the sides while carrying it through the woods is nothing short of amazing! Part of the consideration you should have before buying a stand is how you actually intend to use the equipment. Some guys want the ultimate in comfort and so a product like API's Shootin Star (reviewed here) is a good choice. Heavy, but extremely comfortable for an all day sit. Some of us prefer a climber we can throw on our backs and go wherever the heck we want to. We aren't necessarily interested in luxurious comfort. We don't want to be in pain either, we just don't want to worry about weight, noise or the stand snagging on brush and bumping into stuff as we traverse the woods.
At 14.5 pounds and a load capacity of 300 lbs. you can carry this Lone Wolf Alpha Hand Climber all dang day without so much as a kink in "less than toned" muscles. Like all our tree stand tests, we spend an average of 8 hours schlepping the test product around, climbing various types of trees and sitting for a few hours at a time. The Lone Wolf was so amazing that there was only one single criticism: The seat was too small for some of the fat butts that used it!
The foot platform is made of a lightweight but extremely durable heavy-duty cast aluminum and is oversized (19.5 by 30) for a very stable area. This foot platform is designed for the bow hunter! A built in bow holder cast right into the middle of the platform with a rubber insert protects your bow and makes access very easy. Lone Wolf also has "gear" hook also cast into the platform to hang stuff off of. The strut-angled supports are an anodized aluminum with neoprene washers to dampen and noise. The extremely important advantage of this load-bearing platform is NO NOISE! No rivets popping, no mesh grates to buckle and creak, no tubes to echo the slightest noise. You won't find any cheesy foot straps to struggle with either. Once the lone Wolf is extended you places your feet at comfortable angles directly on the foot platform and under the support strut.
Built into the anodized strut supports is an absolutely revolutionary belt that secures within the square anodized strut tube. This belt has an unbelievable tensile strength of 3100 lbs! The belt reminded us of a modified snow mobile belt. A rugged but flexible squared notched affair with several small but extremely strong woven steel cables running through it gave us the confidence of strength with the major advantages of quiet and less weight. The tree belt is secured within the square anodized tube with another equally revolutionary device that is basically a cam lock lever that secures the belt into position around the tree. Easy, quiet, fast!
Just to give you an idea how easy this product is to use we handed it to an BowCountry.com staffer, Steven who had never used ANY climbing tree stand and told him to give it a "go" with absolutely no coaching and no written instructions. Steven took about 3 minutes to unpack the Lone Wolf (one bungee cord); figure out how to extend the platform struts and in exactly eight minutes was about 18 feet up a tree! To us, this is amazing!
The hand climber section of the Lone Wolf is a 13" by 16" affair that wraps around the tree with exactly the same belt/ cam lock mechanism as the foot platform. The seat is also made of the same heavy-duty cast aluminum and has a dense closed cell foam pad securely affixed. As state earlier in this review, some with wider butts felt the seat, which by the way can fold up against the tree and out of the way, was too small for all day comfort. This reviewer has a small beer belly and the action of using a hand climber, any hand climber, is just not for guys like me. Those unsightly horizontal bruises across the belly are hard to explain to the Mrs. A "Sit and Climb" version is a better solution and also available from Lone Wolf.
Summary:
Buy this stand! If you are looking for the ultimate in low profile, light weight quiet that you can schlep around all day then this is the product for you! Up the tree, down the tree, in the tree is a fast quiet (there's that word again) affair. Innovations in tree stand designs ARE possible and the Lone Wolf has quite a few to offer. With an approximate retail of $289 we find this stand reasonably priced but for those interested in sheer comfort for the price there are other more plush models available on the market.
We rate the Lone Wolf Hand Climber Tree Stand product 5 stars! It rocks!
Remember to use a full body harness when using any tree stand! There's no such thing as macho when you're dead.
