Another swig of pickle juice

I make it a point to hike into the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone at least once every summer. It’s a place I first visited 45 years ago.

The fishing isn’t what it used to be and neither is the canyon following the fires of 1988, but it remains one of my favorite spots on the planet.

I’m sure part of the attraction of the canyon for me is how inaccessible it is. However, it’s not the hike in that’s the problem. It’s the climb out.

When I was younger a friend and I would race back to the trailhead, the loser paying for beer at the Tower store.

Now I’m just tickled to survive the hike and make it out at all. Not that there are any options. There’s no easier way out.

But while I still fish the canyon every year, it’s become a pretty painful ordeal. The last few years I’ve endured terrible leg cramps at the end of the hike. I tried eating bananas and popping potassium pills, but my leg muscles would seize up anyway. I‘d hop around the parking lot cussing and crying until the cramp subsided.

Two years ago, sitting in my friend Dallas’s truck while we were stuck in a bear jam on the way out of the park, I felt a cramp coming on. There was a black bear foraging in the bushes alongside the pickup, but I jumped out anyway, preferring a mauling to the pain that was coming if I didn’t move.

The bear took one look at me and vanished.

I even consulted a doctor friend about my problem, but he told me there was no magic pill and maybe I should just suck it up.

Then a few months ago I read a post on Facebook about drinking pickle juice to cure leg cramps. Now I’m not one to believe everything I read, especially on Facebook, but I gave it a try and voila! -- it worked.

After fishing the canyon last Saturday , I arrived back at the trailhead hot, tired and ready to cramp. I opened a jar of dills that had been sitting in the car all day and took a long swig. The warm, vinegary brine didn’t go down easily, but it did go down. I took a few more hits of the pickle juice on the drive home and I never got the cramps. Not even that night in bed.

It’s a cheap, easy cure. One I hope will allow me to fish the canyon and abuse my body for many more years to come.

Parker Heinlein is

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