Palisades Tahoe, CA - ◊ Red Dog Ridge to Heidi's (1-28-23) [4K]

Red Dog Ridge is a diamond-rated trail off the KT22 Express and Olympic Lady lifts at Palisades Tahoe (formerly Squaw Valley). Both are quite unforgiving despite being the "easiest way down" from the latter of these lifts and the ridge is much steeper than depicted on the trail map. Neither will probably ever be fully groomed, so if you're going up KT22 for the first time definitely take a right off the lift instead. This area (to looker's left of Olympic Lady) seems like one of the most remote parts of the resort (except maybe around Silverado) as it is pretty far away from most of the lifts and seldom touched by more than a handful of skiers at a time.

Technically I took an unnamed trail and nearby unmarked glades, but they're right next to Heidi's so I chose that for the title.

Advice: While Red Dog Ridge is technically the easiest way down from the Olympic Lady lift, don't be fooled by the welcoming groomed tracks because they will end abruptly in front of the steepest part of the trail. I would definitely plan on taking one of the offchute trails (e.g. Tamara's [super hard], Heidi's, etc.) at some point because the ridge line gets very flat (or goes uphill!) and takes a lot of effort to traverse. There will usually be some thin traverse lines made by skiers past, but they are extremely narrow.

Red Dog Ridge theoretically continues until it meets up with Champs Elysées but it's honestly hard to confirm this and, even if it did, it's probably a bit of a trek uphill if you've followed the traverses on the side of the ridge.

Overall Difficulty: 7/10
Relative Difficulty (Red Dog Ridge, Diamond): 7/10
Relative Difficulty (Heidi's, Diamond): 5/10
Accessibility Rating: 5/10 (Right off one lift that's barely open, as well as a long and flat traverse from KT22)
Open Trail Index: 4/10 (Only open with adequate snow, and definitely not a necessity)
Enjoyment Rating: 5/10 (Bumps were daunting but skied okay, traverse was scary and unaccomodating, Heidi's was okay)