2nd time up Carn na Coinnich, route variation this time

[gld73]

Meant to do a hill nearer the entrance to Strathconon but completely missed the turn off. Found myself at Bridgend, so knew this graham was a nice straightforward one up a good track most of the way and just decided to do that again - any hill is good to do after 3 months lockdown. Followed the track up to its high point, but instead of then turning right over the rough ground to reach the nearby summit ridge, I carried on along the track, thinking I might go all the way to Loch Orrin and back instead. Turns out the path marked on the OS map, which is actually a good track most of the way, just disappears into nothing. I was past the summit of Carn na Coinnich and had started the downhill stretch down the other side of the pass, but just found myself in bog with no sign of where the path continued. I could have just ploughed on, but I decided the south slope of Carn na Coinnich actually looked a nice ascent route, so I took that route up to the summit trig point. Quite bleak and cloudy when I was at the summit (though the clouds were above this summit), it had been sunny most of the walk. I headed back the more normal way, north along the summit ridge for a bit, then a right turn at some random point to find a decent route back to the track which avoided peat hags. It was then an easy walk back down the track.

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On the ascent up the good track, looking back north down to Milton and over to the Fannichs

Starting the ascent from the south side of Carn na Coinnich summit

The path I'd been following south over the pass is in the middle left of the photo, but just disappears into nothing in this photo and on the ground

View from the summit trig point looking back to the track to the west side of the hill, where I'm about to head back to.

Back on the track, looking back SW to the summit