Dunraven Pass was closed for a time because of snow in Yellowstone. It was a welcome sight, and will help to put out the remaining fires.

Let me tell you a little about the pass. Dunraven Pass, elevation 8,859 feet, is a mountain pass on the Grand Loop Road between Tower and Canyon in Yellowstone National Park. So that's kind of a strange name for the pass, no? Well let me tell you about that too!

In 1874, just two years after Yellowstone's creation, the Earl of Dunraven, a titled Irish Peer made a visit to the park in conjunction with a hunting expedition to the Northern Rockies. He was so impressed with the park, that he devoted over 150 pages to Yellowstone in his book, The Great Divide, published in London by Chatto & Windus in 1876. The Great Divide was one of the earliest works to praise and publicize the park.

Then in 1878, geographer Henry Gannett named a peak two miles southwest of Mount Washburn in honor of the Earl of Dunraven and the service his book had done for the park. In 1879, Philetus Norris, the park superintendent at the time, gave the pass on the Grand Loop Road between Tower and Canyon the name Dunraven because of its proximity to Dunraven Peak.

So that's how Dunraven Pass got it's name. See you on the slopes. =]:)