Palisades Tahoe, CA - ◊ CII Ridge to Horse Trails to 🟦 Spring Bowl (1-28-23) [4K]

CII (or C2) Ridge is the flagship groomed run down from the Headwall Express at Palisades Tahoe (formerly Squaw Valley). It's a relaxing, although somewhat narrow, trail that offers splendid views of nearby mountaintops and Lake Tahoe. Quite a treat if you can brave the scary signage!

The trail map and real-life difficulty for Spring Bowl is inconsistent (blue vs. diamond) but I will go with it being a high-end intermediate trail considering it's quite short and has many different drop-ins with varying difficulty.

Advice: Horse Trails may not always be groomed, but Bullet is usually a groomed alternative. Spring Bowl can always be avoided by taking Mountain Run instead. Besides that it's a pretty straightforward run, although there can be some confusion about which trails go where around where C2 splits into Horse Trails and Bullet.

Overall Difficulty: 5/10
Relative Difficulty (C2, Diamond): 1/10
Relative Difficulty (Horse Trails, Diamond): 4/10
Relative Difficulty (Spring Bowl, Blue): 9/10
Accessibility Rating: 4/10 (Most of this run is only accessible via Headwall or the painful late-season traverse from Siberia)
Open Trail Index: 5/10 (Headwall Express closes frequently for wind hold)
Enjoyment Rating: 9/10 (Nothing to complain about except confusing signage halfway down)