Speaking of modest expansion,
Did my intermittent annual summer hike up and down the Beavers at A Basin last Friday. Wonderful. Two things:
1. During ski season, it's hard to see and appreciate that so much of what looks like off trail forest in the Beavers is actually greatly cleared for tree skiing. Much of the terrain I thought was just tight trees has actually been partly cleared and contoured/manicured at some expense and effort for us to ski in. Fun to hike through.
2. This summer two new runs have been carved out way over to the far west @ the Beavers, over just short of the Heavenly Valley region, I gather. Like the rest of the runs out there, they will feed into the trail at boundary line that traverses back over to the bottom of Loafer, above the steeper open bald area. One of the trails will be called "Tinker Toy," seems like. (See Al's Blog 8/16 for some of the details:
http://arapahoebasin.blogspot.com/)
Oh, and I was told by guys up working on a new base platform for the Beaver's lift that the return traverse trail above the bald spot that was so sketchy this past season is being worked on, and will be better. (It sure was hard last season - the reason I went back there so little.)