Sunday, September 23rd - 16,000 feet!!!!
The trek to the top of the mountain began bright and early for the crew. They met up with Dr. Catherine Cesarsky and PIO William Garnier at 8am to begin the drive up to ALMA base camp and eventually up to the location of ALMA and APEX. At ALMA base camp at 8,000 feet, the crew got their pre-mountain climb checkup by the paramedics on the mountain and all checked out wonderfully. The medic even commented that Scott Stender had the heart rate and blood pressure of a young man, something he took much joy in on his 49th Birthday!!.
The crew decided to do their interview with Dr. Cesarsky at the APEX antenna and they set up despite the harsh wind and cold that the crew was not yet used to. They used the doors of the APEX observing building to block some of the wind to aid in the audio recording and to cut down on how much the cameras shook. The interview went fantastically and the crew managed the 20-minute interview at 16,000 feet without getting altitude sickness. Immediately after the interview, they snuck indoors, where the air was pressurized to check their equipment and get some oxygen before going out again.
Next, the crew climbed one of the closest hills to APEX to get a great shot of the surrounding landscape of the location of ALMA. The broad landscape will one day house at least 66 antennas and up to 80 of them with ALMA's cooperation with ESO (European Southern Observatory), the United States and Japan. Already, two of the Japanese antennas have arrived and are being assembled and fine-tuned down at ALMA base camp.
After the 2 hours at 16,000 feet, the crew was ready to descend the mountain and get some food for lunch. Thanks to ALMA, the crew was well fed down at basecamp before heading down to San Pedro once again; this time to visit the APEX headquarters to check out the view of the mountains we had just descended from.
The evening plans were debated a few times (Kris Koenig, the producer, wanting to return to 16,000 feet and the rest of the crew and our interviewee wanting to take the rest of the evening to get some b-roll off the mountain) and the crew eventually decided to stay off the mountain for the night and shoot the sunset from a lake nearby. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous! It cast a dark pink glow on the mountains nearby and gave the entire valley a golden glow for a good half hour before the darkness descended. The crew was happy to have experienced this nighttime treat in San Pedro de Atacama.
