Heli-ski guide in critical condition following avalanche: An avalanche left a helicopter ski guide from Haines in critical condition Saturday, KHNS and KTOO reported. Southeast Alaska Backcountry Adventures guide Aaron Karitis was buried for about 30 minutes at a site west of Haines in the Kicking Horse Valley. Rescuers performed CPR after he was dug out of several feet of snow. He had been wearing an emergency beacon. Alaska State Troopers said he "was found unresponsive and transported to the Haines clinic. Karitis was stabilized for transport to Providence Hospital in Anchorage for further treatment of life-threatening injuries." The SEABA website said that Karitis, 31, grew up in Bend, Ore., and has had nearly 300 days of heli-ski guiding in Alaska.
Heavy March dump of snow: Sore backs and shoulders afflicted Alaskans digging out of the biggest snowfall of the winter Friday night and Saturday morning -- snow more than 2 feet deep in some Anchorage locations, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters, who predicted 2 to 4 inches of snow earlier Friday, said "a band of heavy snow developed across the Anchorage Bowl and remained very stationary for much of the night. Snowfall rates were very impressive, approaching 3 inches per hour in some locations." Here are some snowfall depths at 10 a.m. Saturday, according to the National Weather Service:
• Glen Alps: 27 inches
• Upper DeArmoun: 24 inches
• Oceanview: 16 inches
• Midtown: 14 inches
• Eagle River Valley: 10 inches
• Palmer: 4.5 inches
Elwes, Momoa to film in Alaska: A "dark comedy thriller" set to begin shooting in Alaska shortly has added two actors to its cast -- a former Man in Tights and Khal Drogo, according to entertainment news site Shockya. The indie film "Sugar Mountain" was originally set in Australia, director Richard Gray told the website, but "we found a perfect location in Alaska" and adapted the screenplay. Seward City News reported earlier this year that independent studio Yellowbrick Films had selected Seward, a town of about 2,500 on the eastern coast of the Kenai Peninsula, as the top choice for the film, which the paper described as a story "about two brothers, down on their luck, who fake a disappearance in the wilderness so that they'll have a great survival story to sell, but the hoax turns out to be more real than they planned." Now, Cary Elwes of "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and "The Princess Bride" fame (and recently in action on the TV series "Psych") and Jason Momoa, who played Khal Drogo in the HBO series "Game of Thrones," will make their way north to partake in the movie. The director said he's excited about having the actors as well as the location: "I don't think I've been to a more stunning and brutal place, which is perfect for this story."
Grumpy passengers grounded in Kenai: Several flights making their way toward Alaska's largest city were diverted Friday night due to a heavy snowstorm, which dumped nearly 2 feet in some areas of Anchorage. An airport official told KTUU nine flights changed course and went to the Kenai Municipal and Fairbanks International airports, an understandable move given the dangerous weather conditions, but one such group of 140 passengers was kept on the tarmac for more than four hours before being allowed to sleep on the floor of the Kenai airport. A passenger on the Chicago-to-Anchorage United Airlines flight said the pilots left to sleep in a hotel, then airport employees stepped into help by purchasing blankets, pillows and soda and chips, KTUU reported. The plane was expected to take off again around noon Saturday, though some of its passengers had already left by taxi cab, about a $300 ride from the Kenai Peninsula.
Would-be jailhouse smuggler arrested: An Anchorage woman has been charged with a handful of crimes after she tried to sneak contraband and an unidentified controlled substance into an Alaska Department of Corrections jail, according to the Alaska State Troopers. Friday evening, troopers responded to Palmer Correctional Center after getting information about 31-year-old Krystal Leighton's plan, and when they arrived troopers found "Leighton was bringing a controlled substance into the correctional facility to deliver to an inmate along with other contraband," according to a Saturday trooper dispatch. She reportedly had four children with her at the time. Leighton has been charged with first- and second-degree promoting contraband, two miscellaneous charges and four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. She was taken to the Mat-Su Pretrial facility on $2,500 bail.