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Pickle Juice for Fastpacking
Fastpacking is the collision of two sports. You're moving at something close to a run, carrying everything you need to sleep out there, and covering the kind of daily mileage that takes a backpacker a couple of days. That combination is the whole appeal, and it's also why the legs come apart in a way that's specific to fastpacking: you're loading them with run-pace aerobic effort and overnight pack weight at the same time, for hours, day after compressed day.
This is a note about where a near-weightless tool fits into a kit where weight is the entire game. Not a gear list, not a fueling plan. Just the moment a muscle locks with a lot of ground still between you and where you're sleeping.
Two fatigues, one body
A backpacker carries weight but moves slowly. An ultrarunner moves fast but carries almost nothing. A fastpacker does both, and the two loads don't politely take turns. The running effort fatigues the legs aerobically the way an ultra does; the pack adds the sustained muscular load of carrying weight over distance. Exercise cramps lean toward being a problem of fatigued, overworked neuromuscular control rather than a salt shortfall, and fastpacking is a particularly efficient way to overwork the legs because it stacks two demands that each, on their own, are enough to bring on a cramp.
The cramp usually shows up where you'd expect: late in a long day, on a climb, when both kinds of fatigue have had hours to compound. You went out fast because that's the point of fastpacking, and the bill comes due in the back half.
Weight is the whole game
Nowhere does the format of a cramp tool matter more than here. Fastpacking is built around shaving the kit to the bone, the people who do it well run eight-to-fifteen-pound packs and agonize over every item. A jar of pickle juice is unthinkable in that world: it's heavy, it's mostly water you're already carrying, and it leaks. A few sticks of dry powder weigh essentially nothing and disappear into a vest pocket. This is the rare case where the powder isn't a convenience, it's the only version that survives the weight audit a fastpacker runs on everything they carry.
When a cramp shows up, mix a stick into a few ounces of water in a flask and take it. Small and concentrated is the point, you're interrupting the misfire, not trying to drink. On a fastpack you're already carrying soft flasks and moving in a vest, so there's nothing extra to bring. The tool was going to be in your kit anyway, weighing nothing, until the mile you need it.
What it does not do
It won't lighten the pack, slow the pace, or undo the doubled-up fatigue, so a cramp can return on the next climb. The reflex buys you a window to ease off, eat, drink, and let the leg settle before pushing on to camp. And it isn't your nutrition or hydration. Fastpacking burns hard and runs you through real fluid and sodium across big days, and a stick of brine replaces none of it. Fuel and hydrate for the effort you actually signed up for, and let the brine handle its one job.
A single stick of Quickle carries 700mg sodium, 300mg potassium, and 50mg magnesium, plus the real vinegar that does the fast work, in a package light enough that it never registers on the scale you're obsessing over. For a sport built on weight, that's the only cramp tool that earns the spot.
- Hoffman, M. D., & Stuempfle, K. J. (2015). Muscle cramping during a 161-km ultramarathon. Sports Medicine - Open, 1, 19. In long run efforts, cramping involved the most-worked muscles and tracked with muscular demand and damage, not hydration status.
- Trail Runner. Andrew Skurka talks trail running, backpacking, and where the two meet. The discipline's most respected practitioner on running an 8-10 lb kit and pacing for days, not speed.
- Simpson, K. M., et al. (2011). Backpack load affects lower limb muscle activity patterns of hikers during prolonged load carriage. Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology, 21(5), 782-788. Carried load raised quadriceps and calf activity and shifted fatigue markers over distance.
- Schwellnus, M. P. (2009). Cause of exercise associated muscle cramps (EAMC): altered neuromuscular control, dehydration or electrolyte depletion? British Journal of Sports Medicine, 43(6), 401-408.
Quick answers.
Why do I cramp fastpacking when I don't on a normal run?
Fastpacking stacks two loads on the same legs: the aerobic fatigue of running pace and the muscular fatigue of carrying overnight weight, across big daily miles. Since cramps lean toward being a problem of overworked neuromuscular control, doubling the demand makes a late-day cramp more likely than either running or hiking alone.
Is pickle juice worth the weight on a fastpack?
In powder form, yes, because it weighs essentially nothing. A jar of brine is unthinkable on a fastpack: heavy, mostly water, and prone to leaking. A few single-serve sticks disappear into a vest pocket and never register on the scale, which is the only way a cramp tool survives a fastpacker's weight audit.
When should I take it on a fastpacking trip?
At the first twitch of a cramp, or heading into the hard part of a long day, the late climb, the final push to camp. Mix a stick into a few ounces of water in a flask. A small concentrated dose is the goal, not a big drink.
Does it replace food and water on a fastpack?
No. Fastpacking burns hard and runs you through real fluid and sodium across big days, and a stick of brine replaces none of it. Fuel and hydrate for the effort itself. The brine is only for the cramp moment.
Will it stop the cramp from coming back?
No. It interrupts the active cramp but doesn't undo the doubled-up fatigue from running under weight, so a cramp can return on the next climb. It buys you a window to ease off, eat, drink, and let the leg settle before moving on.
