After a desperately hard day, we'd travelled only 10km, constantly plunging waist deep in slush, suffocating on fumes, and generally feeling like this place was hell, we slid a few hundred metres on more slush, arrived at this campsite about 1 am, cooked some noodles, then the weather cleared, and suddenly, everything was right in the world.

quite a sight - magic. But where is it?

I guess from your other pics it is Iceland?!

Aye, Iceland, on the Fimmvörðuháls. A couple of miles beforehand there is some 2 year old lava, ace for cooking marshmallows on!