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The weather app shows wall-to-wall spiky yellow suns. We haven’t had a day like this in over a month, nor is one foretold in the weeks to come, so I abandon the desk and, with a friend and a dog, head for the hills.

We choose Sgòr Gaoith, the high point of the ridge above the River Feshie which forms the western edge of the Cairngorms. Our path starts in Scots Pine forest, where we walk in dappled light and can hear the soft chuckle of Allt Ruadh, the Red Burn. The trees thin as we gain height, but everywhere, new saplings are appearing across this once bare landscape and you can almost feel the rising of life. Our rucksacks are heavy with crampons and ice axe – just in case – but the air is fresh and spangling as the sun pours down the brown slopes and into our winter-dull eyes.

We pause for coffee and apple turnover at a wayside boulder and the old dog romps like a puppy, fording a strong current with ease. No need for the ironmongery as we crunch across sugary snow patches and arrive at the saddle on the ridge; up here the snow has melted and partially refrozen, forming a mosaic of ice and water in the bleached moss.

The white ice echoes the snow on the higher hills beyond the ravine, and the pools throw back the same vivid blue as the sky, arcing above us like a billowing tent in the strong wind. Sgòr Gaoith means “Peak of the Wind” in Gaelic, and when we arrive, a cold gust seizes the hat tucked under my arm and quickly lodges it in the crack of a snow cornice. It’s too far out for safe recovery, and I have to call the golden back from her retrieving instinct.

But the views from the blocky boulders on the summit are some of the finest in the Cairngorms, sweeping from the Great Moss in the south, across the chasm of Glen Einich with its dark loch and the bulk of Braeriach behind, all the way north to the forests of Rothiemurchus and Glenmore. We breathe it in and head back down, washed in sunshine, tossed by wind, brimming with light.

• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com