As well as being popular with walkers and climbers, Snowdonia is very popular with Geology and Geography students, keen to follow in the footsteps of the legendary Charles Darwin. 

If you take a walk into Cwm Idwal from Idwal Cottage Youth Hostel your 45 minute walk can transport you back in time more than 450 million years. At about this time, give or take a year or three, two huge continents collided with massive mountains being formed as a result. 

If you were to go back 250 million years you would find most of these mountains covered in glaciers. These have withdrawn, with the latest glacial period being just 10, 000 years ago. As they withdrew the glaciers carved the mountains below them, reducing them in size and forming the shapes that we see today. 

The large boulders that you see dotted around will have been deposited by the glaciers 10 000 years ago, and have remained where they landed ever since. If you look closely you will see that some of the rocks have rippled surfaces, this is where the rock was once at the bottom of an ocean before the continental shelves collided. At the back of the Cwm is a fantastic example of a Syncline where the sedimentary layers have folded and the top sections have been worn away. Look down the valley and out to Anglesey and you have a fantastic example of a U-Shaped valley where the glacier would have pulled away out to sea, ripping the ends off the ridges leading down into the valley as it went and leaving truncated spurs. 

More recently the landscape has been altered by the influence of man. Forests were cleared for timber and grazing for sheep and cattle. As you walk through Cwm Idwal you will see that some areas have been fenced off and have a markedly different flora. This is because the sheep haven't been able to get at it for the last 20 years. If it was left long enough then trees may well return to the Cwm. 

In the 19th century the area felt the wave of industrialisation that swept across Britain. Copper, lead, zinc and slate was quarried from the hillsides and many dis-used mine workings can be seen around the park today. A good example are the old copper mines on the Miners Track up Snowdon. Ever wondered why the lake is so blue?

Of course the latest influence on the landscape is that of tourism. The Snowdon Railway was built over 100 years ago to ferry tourists to the top of the highest summit in England and Wales and the cafe is soon to be re-developed.