Driving through Glenshee I was worried. I could barely see the taillights on the car in front and we were in a thick constant cloud. Not ideal conditions for finding a place to camp with less than an hour of daylight left!
Thankfully after the ski centre, the road descends slightly and by the time we arrived to the layby/carpark that we were planning on camping from, we had reemerged from the cloud. We couldn't see anything in the distance, but at least we were could see enough to find a spot to pitch up...
The layby is the start point for the Glas Maol 4 and has enough room for maybe 15 cars. There is a wee track heading off to the right which we took, bringing us down onto a lower level near a little bridge. We crossed the bridge with our wild camp stuff and got the tent up just in time for the rain starting! Thankfully our tent has a decent size entrance area so we sat inside sheltering from the rain until it was time for bed. From maybe 9-11pm (or whenever I finally fell asleep!) the rain was pretty awful. I felt quite concerned about us being able to complete the walk if it continued!
As i've recently learnt with rainy/camps by rivers, falling asleep to the sound of water tends to make you wake up in the middle of the night desperate for a pee!! At 2am I finally caved and headed out of the tent and WOW. One of the most incredible sights I have ever seen. The sky was SO clear and I couldn't even guesstimate how many stars I could see. They were so bright and the sky was completely clear. It was incredible. I went back into the tent to get my phone to take a photo (night mode really didn't do it justice) and wake Stephen up so he could go and look too.
With breakfast finished we packed up our stuff and the tent then headed back to the car. By this point it was about 8:30am and the car park was almost full, so make sure you head up early if you're doing the Glas Maol 4!
You can read about the hike and the route we took here :)