Monsters, Inc: hunting trolls in the hybrid Ford Ranger Wildtrak

"If we get kidnapped by elves, that's probably not covered by BBC insurance."

Photographer Mark chews slowly on a mouthful of wasabi-coated fish pieces and grimaces. At my sudden outburst or the food, I’m not sure.

“Think of the premiums for covering mythological kidnap,” he says, as if imagining fable-led loss adjusting. “But I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

Photography: Mark Riccioni

He’s not wrong. Although he might be. Nothing is clear. We’ve already not found a mythical gold chest hidden at the base of the Gullfoss waterfall, failed to root out the legendary trout fishing ogress who occupies the Háifoss, can’t find the Huldufólk (hidden people, although that just proves that they’re really good at hiding) and our snacks are verging on human rights violations. Mostly fish or liquorice for some reason. It’s nearly 2am, we haven’t slept in 20 hours and the sun is still shining. Slightly delirious, but it’s supposed to be like this – we’re in Iceland at the equinox, and we are hunting trolls.

So not your usual Wednesday, but if you’re going to come to a place like Iceland when the midnight sun is in full effect, you might as well embrace the local weird. And Iceland being as casually epic as it is, that involves folklore and monsters, legends and myths – with which, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am obsessed. The wilder the place, usually the greater the depth/horror of the stories, and Iceland is Olympic standard wild.

It’s also an excuse to test out Ford’s new plug-in hybrid Ranger Wildtrak, by doing really stupid things in it, mainly because this is a very sensible pickup truck and incongruity is the fuel of a good story. Also because we need to be self sufficient(ish) with all the camera gear and electronics, capable of light off roading without getting fatally stuck and comfortable enough to visit 1,250 miles worth of folklore in two days.

So, the basics of the Ranger plug-in hybrid: 2.3-litre four pot EcoBoost petrol engine supplemented by a 75kW (101bhp) electric motor powered by an 11.8kWh battery that drives through Ford’s largely excellent 10-speed auto box. Which sounds like about four too many speeds, but actually isn’t. The usual hybridity supplements both the savings and the shove – you get nearly 280bhp and 515lb ft of torque at peak, and some 26 miles of electric running every time you plug it in for four hours on a normal plug, which leads to the only slightly misleading official figure of 90mpg.

But it’s got a payload of a tonne, a solid e-4WD system (with easy mode selection) and Pro Power Onboard which can pull 6.9kW direct from the traction battery for juicing up power tools, camping equipment or indeed a barrage of camera equipment and drone cells. It’s the perfect car for traipsing around Iceland looking for stuff in the boonies. Although the Wildtrak version we picked could probably be painted a more subtle hue than orange for sneaking up on fairies.

Still, we landed in Reykjavík in the middle of the day and immediately set off west along Iceland’s ring road Route 1. Couple of waterfalls which failed to be anything but jaw dropping, as mentioned, no sign of the bullion or the ogress who’s supposed to be a bit inhospitable to visitors who don’t obey the house rules. A little stop to wonder at the Reynisdrangar cliffs near Vik, which are obviously the bodies of giant trolls who were turned to stone by sunlight when caught abroad trying to drag a ship onto the black sand beach, although Mark seems to be largely sceptical. The heathen.

Still, it’s impressive geography, but not any kind of conclusive proof of mythology, so we’re going to have to try harder. It’s not like the beings of folklore are just going to pop out and say hi in front of all the other tourists, and usually an epic adventure requires some jeopardy and trial. Much to Mark’s displeasure, I decide to make the trial a lack of sleep, the jeopardy both the snacks and having to sit with me for extended stints at the wheel.

So it’s not long before we’re in four wheel drive and off into the interior, though we’re talking very rough and rocky roads with shallow river crossings rather than the Darién Gap. The mission here? Looking for the Huldufólk mounds, troll spoor and anything spooky. And the Wildtrak actually feels quite different to other Rangers. Now, you can actually save the battery for use later (for camping/tool power), or deploy it for seamless off roadiness, because the e-motor lives in the bell housing of the 10-speed.

An electric clutch modulates the drive from the e-assistance according to what the engine is doing, optimising torque and making for very steady and serene progress off road. Handy when crawling up to the foot of a glacier, or accidentally floating a few metres sideways in a ‘shallow’ river that wasn’t, while trying to traverse an estuary where the rivers bleed out into the ocean through tributary veins. I visited this particular glacial outflow about 16 years ago.

Back then, it was about twice the size and predominantly white – these days, it’s much reduced and blackened like a smoker’s lung. Time of year probably, but its decline makes me melancholy. Or maybe it’s the fish bites, not sure. Still, we pushed on, making use of the Ranger’s low range and rear diff lock – though we never really needed either of those – mainly just stuck it in ‘Slippery’ mode in 4-high and cracked on (there are also Normal, Sport, Tow/Haul, Mud/Ruts and Sand settings, but we weren’t getting that hardcore or specific). Plus it’s got active noise cancelling in the cab, which makes it quiet. Although the petrol engine does sound very industrial if you stand outside.

As it turns out though, waterfalls are also... a bit noisy. So once we’d found one of our target cascades, we bimbled the Ranger as far as it would go (quite far, as it happens) and then set off on foot. At some point, we find ourselves climbing through the gaps in a cliff face behind said waterfall to get a good look at a rock formation that looks uncannily like a deformed, screaming troll face, and find... tracks.

I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, and it’s genuinely impressive

Now, it’s not that strange to find tracks in caves, but when they’re very obviously big, cloven hoofed trails in an inaccessible cave that lead one way into an underground river, you do start to wonder. And yep, there’s a legend for that, too – the Nykur, a horse spirit that likes to tempt people to ride it, and then drowns them in the nearest body of water. And then eats them. I mention the story to Mark, and although absolutely neither of us was scared, we may have exited the dark and mysterious cave slightly faster than we entered. We drive off through the non night, with no northern lights to be found at this time of year, but cognisant of the fact that the borealis is actually the result of a cosmic Arctic fox’s tail sweeping across snowy ground, in case you weren’t aware.

Eventually we did find a hotel, though I can’t remember much about it other than it had absolutely brilliant blackout blinds. Which we made use of for all of four hours before setting off again, on the trail of a stone cold certainty, the Lagarfljót Wyrm, Iceland’s version of the Loch Ness monster. The only issue? It’s 350 miles away in the east, hence the early start. Both of us are lightly winded by the onslaught of myth, lack of sleep and relentless beauty of Iceland. The mountains aren’t the picturesque, homely kind. This is not log cabin and hot chocolate country, these are the teeth of the world snapping at the sky. Weather and geothermal steam spewing forth like bad breath from the throat of the world. It’s endlessly pretty, but also uncompromising on the eyes.

This must be what the earth was like in the first breath of creation, all raw, cracked and sharp edged. A pause, and we stare vacantly at the sea for a while trying to spot the Hafgufa sea serpent, but all we see are storm birds and spindly legged waders on the marshes. And a big red chair bolted to a rock. Apparently there’s no accompanying mythology here, just a random red chair. But then there’s also a fence lined with nothing but bras, for no appreciable reason. Icelanders can be weird.

It’s on the road that the PHEV starts to make even more sense. It’s actually a really good road car. We didn’t plug it in much, but by charging the battery on the go via the EV mode selector, we could harvest power to use later when stopped. With a flat battery, we got between 30 and 35mpg. Which is a bit meh, but not terrible, and if you charged it up enough, it would hack that figure right up. But the steering is good, the ride is excellent and the handling, though not quite expensive SUV in terms of refinement, isn’t far off.

Some of that is due to redesigned suspension, some possibly due to the battery placed between reworked frame rails; pickups always ride better with some weight around the rear axle and the PHEV comes with it built in. Still, it’s the best Ranger I’ve tried in terms of comfort and general use, and stripping miles isn’t the chore it should have been. It is at this point we gave up figuring out what time it actually was, versus what time it felt like. When it’s all just ‘daytime’, it doesn’t seem to matter.

Hours and many stories later, Lagarfljót turns out to be a massive lake, ringed by a serviceable gravel road. But after five hours of searching there’s nothing, just one vague ripple that might have been the dragon wyrm, but could also have been a curious carp. Though we do find a couple of ‘elf houses’, little doll’s house like structures that you’re supposed to build in Iceland for the local fairies to move into if disturbed by your own construction. I can’t help but sigh the big sigh of the defeated. We’ve got 10 hours of driving to do to get back, and the most folkloric thing we’ve seen are some wet hoofprints. But looking out over the lake, that doesn’t matter. Iceland is its own reward.

As we wend our way back, past the healing waters of the Snæfellsjökull and Dimmuborgir-ish places which very probably contained the souls of the mischievous Yule Lads (seriously, they’re naughty Christmas elves), past homes of land wights and sea gods, titans and Svartalves, it becomes clear why Iceland is so steeped in myth. It ferments from the view. When everything is this bonkers, stories grow like mushrooms. And apparently so do the mushrooms, which probably feed the stories. The Ranger PHEV is absolutely the right car, oddly.

With double cab pickup trucks expensive and now no longer capable of being claimed as vans (single cabs are still taxed as commercials), you really need it to do a job or be efficient. Probably a bit of both. And a pickup should be good at a lot of things – off and on roading, being practical, comfortable and rugged. The Ranger PHEV is all of those things. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s the most attractive of all the Rangers bar the Raptor. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did, and it’s genuinely impressive, a trick in itself.

And even though we found no complete evidence of creatures from the netherworlds, there’s one thing that’s for certain: you might not see elves in Iceland, but that doesn’t stop it from being a deeply magical place.