In your opinion, what is the hardest 14er?

[desertdog]

For me the hardest was the Ellingwood Arete on the Crestone Needle. No comparison to the other climbs I have done on 14ers. With an little experience most of the standard routes on 14ers are very straight forward, but I’m sure there are non standard routes that are much tougher than the Arete.

[randalmartin]

When people describe a lot of the things that make a 14er "Hard" they more often are referring to route founding complexities that can quickly turn into a dangerous situation. "Dangerous" is the adjective I would use to describe the ease with which someone can get into a very bad situation caused by a 1] route founding mistake or 2] loose rock/rockfall caused by themselves or another climber or animal.

I don't have an opinion about which 14ers rank highest by that definition of dangerous but would simply group Capitol (route finding), Crestone Needle (route founding coming down), The Bells (loose rock, route finding), Wilson (loose rock) among the top 5. I haven't done LB yet but planning to in the next weeks as a snow climb to remove the primary risk (rockfall).

[oldschool]

For me......Bells and the traverse. It was hard due to the consequences of mistakes in route finding and rock conditions. I know all of the harder ones (Capitol, Pyramid, Little Bear, and others) have severe consequences if mistakes are made. I felt that the Bells and the traverse was sporty and critical to make good choices, more so than any of the other 14er's.

Mike

[SnowAlien]

For me the hardest was the Ellingwood Arete on the Crestone Needle. No comparison to the other climbs I have done on 14ers. With an little experience most of the standard routes on 14ers are very straight forward, but I’m sure there are non standard routes that are much tougher than the Arete.

Did you lead any pitches on the Arete?
Diamond on Longs would be harder for sure, as well as Sunlight spire or Capitol's NW buttress (also pretty sure OP is not asking about those routes)

For me, it's Capitol, hands down. Although LB via Hourglass, Bells and Snowmass make it in top-5

[desertdog]

For me the hardest was the Ellingwood Arete on the Crestone Needle. No comparison to the other climbs I have done on 14ers. With an little experience most of the standard routes on 14ers are very straight forward, but I’m sure there are non standard routes that are much tougher than the Arete.

Did you lead any pitches on the Arete?
Diamond on Longs would be harder for sure, as well as Sunlight spire or Capitol's NW buttress (also pretty sure OP is not asking about those routes)

For me, it's Capitol, hands down. Although LB via Hourglass, Bells and Snowmass make it in top-5

No I did not lead. Yeah like I said there are harder routes, but for me the Arete was the hardest I climbed on a 14er. The NW Buttress and the Diamond are only "aspirational" for me. He did ask routes, but If we are just talking standard routes then I guess Capitol.

[mtnkub]

Capitol is likely the hardest. But i was in really good shape when i did it, and had a really nice day on it.

Little Bear felt the hardest to me, mainly because my climbing in the hourglass was off. Also, imho, it is the only 14er standard route that has any required 4th class moves. Hardly anyone climbs Capitol without being on some 4th class, but it is not required. Nonetheless, i would rate Capitol as an overall much harder mountain.

Snowmass stood out to me for being unexpectedly hard, but i would still rank most other Elk 14ers harder. My unexpected nemesis has been Wilson Peak. Certainly not one of the five hardest, but the only 14er i turned around on for reasons other than incoming weather. (The only turn-around based on weather was Maroon). Second time i made it after almost turning around again, this time because of snow and leaving the ice axe in the car.

As said by others, "hard" is a little different than "dangerous", but involves an overlapping group of 14ers. For me, on South Maroon on the day after my turn around, a microwave size block that was my handhold came loose, and i was barely able to step out of its way. And on Little Bear we did have rockfall in the hour glass. We made sure to be the first ones through on the way up; but on our way down, another group was above us. So Little Bear wins this contest imho. On Capitol, you will likely find evidence of people having gotten onto some ridiculously dangerous terrain. (Like people getting into a dirt chute when getting off-route on the work-around of K2; almost made me throw up seeing footprints in there). But that is off-route; on Little Bear it is clearly on-route. (Not that there are no on-route dangers on Capitol).

[druid2112]

First, I haven't done them all, so know that. Second, although I try to make a point of using alternate routes/conditions when I can, I'm not a Bells Traverse kind of climber.

* LB - I did in perfect conditions on perfect Hourglass snow in March and it was a blast, but I have heard horror stories about rockfall in summer. I was lucky.
* Crestone Peak - didn't think it was much of a thing at all
* Crestone Needle - more of a risk of hourglass-type rockfall in the gullies, and route finding can be tricky. I went up the standard route, then encountered a couple people up top that were very experienced (based on conversation and the fact they had arrived there via the traverse from the Peak). I wasn't ready to leave the summit yet but quickly followed them after watching them start down a very wrong route on their descent. I felt I had to intervene and say, "hey - no! over here!" So I can easily see how someone might get crossed up, especially if they had not come UP the standard route. Oh, and the crux near the dihedral was a bit tricky for a non-rock climber guy.
* North Maroon - Loose rock, but not too bad overall, I thought. But again, the class 4 crux on the way down was not my favorite thing, being a non-rock climber guy.
* Pyramid - I can see where people think it's tough and dangerous, and it is, but it's also short. But man, I had a BLAST on the last however many hundred feet climbing up that rock. And that's coming from a non-rock climber guy.
* Capitol - This would get my vote. It's a long way to get in and out of there when all is said and done, and overall it's just tough. The back side from the top of the slope around to K2 has proven to be dangerous - the route can be a little tough to find and there are lots of rocks out to get you. Then the push up to K2 has a lot of talus hopping. Getting up and around K2 is not insignificant. The knife edge is really not bad - it's just the exposure, provided you are like me and don't care about the optics of skidding across on your butt (I have nothing to prove by standing up). What got me really was the last section after the knife edge. I did about 1/2 on the ridge, 1/2 off to the side, and it's very steep and it's all a no-fall zone. It's one of those sections where late at night, reminiscing in my bed I sometimes I think, "you're really a dumbass, you should have been going slower on the way down. Don't be that guy!"

[nsaladin]

Capitol for sure. Caveat being that I did Little Bear in perfect spring snow at the end of May. I got Capitol on first attempt and had 3 attempts on Little Bear in spring snow conditions. Capitol has an easier approach for sure, especially if you don’t have 4WD to get to 10,300’ on Lake Como Road. Doing Little Bear without snow was not an option for me, so I insisted on doing it as a snow climb even if it took me 3 seasons...

[andrew85]

I personally rate Little Bear as the hardest seeing as I did the northwest face to avoid the hourglass (would much rather deal with a harder climb than rockfall risk). If going off standard routes I'd say it would have to be Capitol by a pretty wide margin, though I haven't done and don't really have any interest in doing the hourglass to compare. Mind you I did Capitol as my first class 4 with only Pikes and Longs as experience, so I might be remembering it as being harder than it actually is but outside of Little Bear and and the traverses nothing's felt as difficult as Capitol was that day. I'd also rate the chimney on North Maroon as the hardest single move on a 14er standard route, was legitimately stumped on how to manageably enter and exit the bottom of it. Ascending I pretty much had to do a full pull-up in a really awkward position and descending I actually fell off the last 10', lol though fortunately it's not exposed so not really any major risk there. Think facing outward was my mistake and my backpack was complicating things on the descent, when I get around to the Bells Traverse I'll try lowering my backpack first and seeing if that gives more maneuverability.

[nunns]

I haven't climbed them all but descending the standard route of Crestone Needle after summiting non-standard was really tough from a route finding perspective. Several gullies end in cliffs. One gully is the standard, correct route. Our party chose the wrong one initially and grudgingly reversed. Other people haven't been so fortunate and have either been cliffed out, injured or died.

+1, although I still have a LOT of the tougher 14ers remaining. We pretty much failed in our route finding on the descent. We persevered down the wrong gully (another mistake) and as a result my partner fell and could have been seriously injured. We were fortunate to walk away unscathed.

Sean Nunn

[nunns]

Gerry Roach has a Roach Point rating in his most recent 14er guidebook edition. It consists of "peaks elevation, length of approach, climb viewed in time and distance, elevation gain and technical difficulty". 4 of 5 highest entries are Crestone Peak approaches.

True, although part of the reason the R points are so high in the Crestones is because of the approach. My guess is that most people ameliorate that part by camping at S. Colony Lakes or near treeline on the Willow Creek trail. Probably also true for Little Bear.

Sean Nunn

[druid2112]

I haven't climbed them all but descending the standard route of Crestone Needle after summiting non-standard was really tough from a route finding perspective. Several gullies end in cliffs. One gully is the standard, correct route. Our party chose the wrong one initially and grudgingly reversed. Other people haven't been so fortunate and have either been cliffed out, injured or died.

In my previous post above, I noted that this is exactly what I felt I was about to witness had I not intervened. The people I chatted with up top had come from the traverse, and had no clue where to go to descend the standard route.

When I did the Needle (standard route), having read of experiences like this, I spent a LOT of time on the way up stopping and looking back, especially at key points, and remembering land marks etc. It was crucial to do so, as on the way down there were at least a couple points where it would have been easy to blow right past where you should have turned.

I think that is something that people don't do enough of. When headed up, I routinely stop and look down to take mental pictures of the route so it's more familiar to me on the way down. Just my two cents.