At the Minffordd hotel on the A487 take the B4405. The campsite is on the right just past the Minffordd path. Camping is adjacent to the Kings Youth Hostel. Lyns Cafe Lynns cafe in Beddgelert - just down the road from the National Trust Cottage has great food at good prices. Earth History North of Snowdon is the most important slate-quarrying region in Britain.
Welsh slate varies in colour from blue grey to blue black, heather red, etc.
The colour and composition vary depending on the mineral content of the original rock - and these all depend on what type of rock was being eroded on land at the time. The slate formed from layers of fine mud that accumulated on a deep quiet ocean bed nearly 500 million years ago. Later they were squeezed and compressed under pressure. The force of this was so intense that the mud was literally crushed into a dense solid metamorphic rock we have come to call slate. Descent from Tryfan Flora and Fauna Mid-Wales is the home of the red kite.