Which of the 4 Great Traverses would you consider as the hardest?

[Watlas]

Little Bear -> Blanca is the hardest.

The second hardest is the flashbacks from the doing Little Bear -> Blanca traverse.

[Edwardteach]

Are you thinking of NE Crestone? That could be seen as C4 from NE Crestone to "East Crestone", but in no way is visiting"East Crestone" from off the standard route to Crestone Peak hard at all.

Well it would be kind of backtracking to go from east crestone to west then to the needle meaning it would defy regular traverse qualifications, however the reason I mention it is because the original traverse route starts from the crestone West peak which is technically not a 14er as it has only 100' of prominence and so the only modification to the route would be to summit the east crestone peak then traverse to the west summit just for tradition to keep the traverse route the same then continue to the needle, but I suppose that would be less pertinent than popularizing a new official direct route from crestone East peak to crestone needle considering the East peak is the true 14er and the west summit is the false summit

[Veory]

Are you thinking of NE Crestone? That could be seen as C4 from NE Crestone to "East Crestone", but in no way is visiting"East Crestone" from off the standard route to Crestone Peak hard at all.

Well it would be kind of backtracking to go from east crestone to west then to the needle meaning it would defy regular traverse qualifications, however the reason I mention it is because the original traverse route starts from the crestone West peak which is technically not a 14er as it has only 100' of prominence and so the only modification to the route would be to summit the east crestone peak then traverse to the west summit just for tradition to keep the traverse route the same then continue to the needle, but I suppose that would be less pertinent than popularizing a new official direct route from crestone East peak to crestone needle considering the East peak is the true 14er and the west summit is the false summit

The only qualification is that it was in a book once. Most of the traverse isn't on the ridge anyways. If you wanted to stay on the ridge you would've gone over the east summit the whole time.

[wmagnuson7]

Getting back to the OP's question, I think the consensus is pretty clear that Little Bear-Blanca is the hardest and Mt. Wilson-El Diente is the easiest (but obvously still quite challenging).

Whether to rank the Crestone Traverse as the second most difficult or the Maroon Bells as the second most difficult depends on the climber. The Crestone Traverse is much more difficult physically (14 miles, 7,000 vertical gain vs. 10 miles and 4,900 vertical gain for the Maroon Bells Traverse) and I found the exposure on the headwall to be significantly more dramatic than any exposure on the Bells Traverse. However, the moves on the Bells Traverse were more technical than the 5.2 "bulge move" on the Crestone Traverse and climbing up the headwall.

So, pretty subjective based on the individual and you can make a case for either the Crestone Traverse or the Maroon Bells Traverse to be more difficult. For me, the Maroon Bells Traverse was my favorite hike/climb of all the 58 14'ers, so I would put the Crestone Traverse as the second most difficult just because it was just a long, challening day (the obviously could be made shorter if one camped at South Colony Lakes).

[daway8]

Getting back to the OP's question, I think the consensus is pretty clear that Little Bear-Blanca is the hardest and Mt. Wilson-El Diente is the easiest (but obvously still quite challenging).

There are a few dissenters to that opinion - the number one standout feature of LB-B is the extreme exposure. Some people have commented how the constant extreme exposure makes the route exhausting but I'm in perhaps the minority who find that same exposure energizing, so despite the ~1 mile distance between peaks that went much faster than anticipated for me.

I thought the Bells had more sustained and serious climbing than anything on the LB-B Traverse where it was mostly either easier climbing or just an isolated move here and there - though I may have somewhat skewed my perception by doing a largely ridge direct version of the Bells - though that fact itself highlights another difference in that on the Bells you have options to get off course and into harder terrain than needed (either by accident or by desire), whereas on LB-B route-finding is virtually nonexistent since there is seldom any possibility of doing anything but staying on top of the ridge (except perhaps among the towers at the end).

Also, fun fact is that El Diente-Wilson flips from easiest to hardest if you stay completely ridge proper. You can also shift the Crestone Traverse ranking by adding in a start from the North Butrress.