Where?
Ahwiyah Point.
A name recognized by few, even among park employees, yet if you’ve walked around mirror lake it’s hard to miss the small dome jutting out in front of Half Dome.
Ahwiyah meaning “Quiet Waters” is the original name for Mirror Lake given by the Ahwaneechee people. However this granite peak standing 1800ft above these quiet waters, is not always quiet.
March 28 of 2009 saw 115,000 tons of rock fall off Ahwiyah Point, as powerful as a 2.4 magnitude earthquake and Yosemite’s largest rockfall since 1987.
Dangerously beautiful is the name of the game in mountain adventures and this is no different.
The Mission
The adventure began with my buddy Nick inviting me to join him on an overnight trip to Ahwiyah Point.
He envisioned the milky way above Half Dome, with his lit-up tent tucked neatly on the knife edge summit.
A solo attempt just before had almost gotten him to the summit, but tricky bushwacking meant a return mission with more friends and daylight was needed.
So it begins…
On October 21, 2025, Nick, Marlon (another yosemite homie) and I hiked up the Mist trail to get on our way.
We were looking at around 7 miles and 4800ft of elevation gain to the base of subdome, then dropping down and scrambling towards Ahwiyah Point.
The sunset did not dissapoint.
Nick got his shot.
I was happy with being in such an extreme place and got some photos I cherish deeply as well.
The adventure did not end there.
Rain and wind woke us up at 2am.
The idea of retracing our steps in wet conditions was scary.
I wasn’t the only one with a pit in my stomach and Nick had the proper foresight to notify his friend in YOSAR that we may or may not be in trouble.
Our saving grace was ironically, strong winds.
While it kept me up for a while, it meant that come morning all the granite was basically blow dried.
We had our window.
Returning to the base of subdome was the most technically difficult and potentially dangerous part of this journey, and storm clouds loomed above the entire time.
Luckily the rain gods let us get all the way down to Nevada Falls before releasing enough water to turn the Mist Trail into a flowing creek.
Soaked but alive and stoked.
An awesome adventure and a unique place I would gladly trek to again, though perhaps with clear weather conditions and long pants to fend off the manzanitas.
At the base of subdome we veered off and took the climbers descent towards the face of Half Dome.
Looking up, we saw highliners walking the gap between the visor on the Half Dome summit.
Far away, but close enough to get some cool photos after cropping.
We continued bushwacking through sharp manzanitas, carefully making our way down granite slopes.
We brought a long tagline (4mm cord) just in case we encountered steep slabs, and though we didn’t really use it I was happy we had it.
Across some more slabs and up to the summit required some comfort on steep granite and yet again I was thankful for the miracle of vibram rubber on my approach shoes.
Right as sunset was nearing we topped out Ahwiyah Point and found our 4 foot wide bivy spots.
The sunset did not dissapoint.
Nick got his shot.
I was happy with being in such an extreme and beautiful place and got some photos I’ll cherish deeply.
