Skating on the Stroudwater River 12/31/2025

Описание: The Stroudwater River, Portland, ME 12/31/2025... last chance this year... E.C. Anderson had it exactly right: the river did NOT resurface nicely after the snow and the rain... in fact it's pretty unfun (except for goofs like me?)..... exCEPT... for one spot... yep... THAT spot.
If you start at the Rivers Edge Trailhead, past the canoe rack storage, and slide over the thin broken ice where the river dropped about a foot, it's all over 4 inches in the middle: and there are even a few smooth spots on the way downstream to the waterfalls at Congress Street. On both shores, you can skate thin moats for some distances: It is weird old deep ice, covered by dirt and mud, with submerged drainholes, then water, then covered with 1- 1 1/2" new ice: but you can skate on this surprisingly strong 1" if you go GENTLY (I double poled whenever it cracked under me).
You can skate under the congress street bridge too: the center is split and raised in the middle, but a strong 4" thick. The far side of the bridge is pretty nice ice! The water is flowing fast down the waterfall.
I should probably stop there, but I saw a Facebook post by Portland Trails yesterday afternoon   / 17cfmfjo6x  
It showed a beautiful smooth clear green ice river under the new bridge project: This looked amazing so I needed to skate this section. i don't know when these pictures are really from, but it sure as hell was NOT from 12/30/25. The entire river is covered with frozen snow shards, hills, and 5" deep ski tracks. Those ski tracks aren't going anywhere this year: they're here for the duration...
The ice upstream was borderline illegal: I wouldn't send my worst enemies upstream on the Stroudwater… but like a goof, I skated all the way to the 95 overpass: fittingly, it was a catastrophe of broken massive chunks of thick ice tossed around in open water: now that's how to end a year in skating, some good natural chaos