Maine hasn't seen a lot of snow yet this year, a disappointment for skiers and snowmobilers. But a stretch of sunny, frigid days earlier this month created an abundance of clear, smooth ice on lakes, ponds, and even some rivers, a rare treat for outdoor skating enthusiasts.
The late afternoon sun glinted off the frozen surface of Great Pond in Cape Elizabeth last week, and Alden Sawyer hurtled across the ice as a fierce north wind propelled his handheld surfing sail.
He was pretty sure he broke 30 miles per hour.
"It was up there," he said. "It definitely feels fast on a pair of skates."
Frank Whitter also came to ride the ice. He said he's been skate sailing for more than 30 years, and these are some of the best conditions he's ever seen.
"It's truly panic mode. Everybody's like, texting and [asking] 'Where are you going?' I have one friend who went three times yesterday, three different lakes, just chasing black ice," Whittier said.
When Whittier says black ice, he's not referring to the roadway hazard, nor to the extreme sport of skating on especially thin ice.
For him and others in Maine's outdoor skating community, black ice means a safe, smooth, mirror-like surface unblemished by snow, rain or thaw.
For wild ice chasers, it's the undisputed holy grail.
"It is absolutely like a glass carpet out there," he said, surveying Great Pond. "It's crazy, crazy, beautiful."
In fact, conditions were so good that Stew Strawbridge pulled his fourth-grade daughter Nina out of school for a session on Runaround Pond in Durham.
"I mean, we usually get it once a year, maybe twice, but right now we've got a stretch. It looks like it might last like 15 to 20 days," Strawbridge said.
For her part, Nina said her legs were getting a little cold, but she was still happy to be out here.
"Ah well, it's so fun to just like, glide across the ice," she said.
Meanwhile in Falmouth, Marina Gray is cutting a swift, upwind line across the glassy surface of Highland Lake.
"It's kind of effortless, almost," she said, midstride. "And I'm sure, you know, once the wind pushes me back, I probably will have to do like 10% effort to try to really get some speed."
Gray said she fell in love with outdoor ice skating as a kid, and that now she's something of an evangelist for the sport.
"I'm trying to get all my friends to go out. My friend with me today, she actually just bought her skates an hour ago," Gray said.
There's no central authority in the outdoor ice community, so most information travels through a tip from a friend, a video dropped in the group chat, or a detailed scouting report posted on Facebook.
The ever-shifting nature of the ice, and the crowd-sourced knowledge gathering, is part of the thrill. But it's also part of the risk. There's no guarantee that the ice will be safe on any given section of any given pond.
Marina Gray wears a pair of ice picks around her neck in case she breaks through and needs to pull herself out. But she said that's part of the deal.
"Just something about being on a frozen lake seems kind of daring," she said. "I like to push the limits and enjoy the elements outside."
Those elements, of course, are changing. Maine winters are getting shorter, warmer, and more erratic due to climate change.
Frank Whittier, the skate sailor at Great Pond in Cape Elizabeth, said he's seen it firsthand.
"We're truly cherishing this moment, but we're not getting as many," he said. "Our lakes are unequivocally not freezing as much in the winter."
That means when the ice is in, there's no time to waste.
In the waning daylight Whittier steps onto his sailing deck — a sort of longboard with skates instead of wheels — lifts a handheld sail overhead, and glides away.
