After five years envisioning, designing and building a hiking and bicycling trail, the groups behind the Sebago to the Sea Trail are celebrating completion of the trail Saturday at the trail’s southern terminus in Portland.

The trail, which starts at Sebago Lake in Standish and sticks close to the Presumpscot River as it flows through Gorham, Windham, Westbrook, Falmouth and Portland on its way to Casco Bay, is 28 miles long.

The varied terrain along the trail features dirt paths through woodlands, paved paths along railroad tracks and sidewalk portions through city neighborhoods. There is also a 5-mile paddling section from South Windham to Westbrook, which is considered temporary as work continues on a rail-trail portion.

The main groups that led the effort are the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust, Mountain Division Alliance, Portland Trails and the Westbrook Recreation and Conservation Commission. Funding for trail work and signage was obtained through government and private donations, and each of the groups will maintain the trail into the future.

“We have done what we set out to do, a contiguous trail,” said Tania Neuschafer, manager for the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust and coordinator for the Sebago to the Sea Trail. “That there’s a section you have to jump in a boat for five miles to us is kind of fun because it provides people an opportunity to mix it up and enjoy the river that they’re hiking so much along.”

The 5-mile paddling section should be swapped out for a hiking section next spring, Neuschafer said, since the Maine Department of Transportation is working to install tracks along the Mountain Division rail line from Westbrook to South Windham. The town of Windham and city of Westbrook are also seeking grant funding to build a paved walking and bicycling trail alongside the tracks, although funding has yet to be received. Once the tracks are in, users will be able to walk along the tracks until trains are reintroduced.

Trail layout

The 28-mile trail starts – or ends, depending on your direction of travel – at Sebago Lake, about 1.5 miles through the woods from the end of Pond Road in Standish. The trail runs through Portland Water District-owned Sebago Lake Land Reserve to the Otter Ponds, near Sebago Lake Village. At that point, the trail connects to the paved Mountain Division Rail with Trail, managed by the Mountain Division Alliance. The next six or so miles takes walkers and riders through pastoral Gorham into South Windham, where signs direct trail users along roadways to Mallison Street. The paddling section begins just below the Mallison Falls Dam.

The paddling section makes its way along the quiet and undeveloped area around the Presumpscot River to Westbrook, where paddlers can portage at Lincoln Street, located just above the Saccarrappa Dam near the Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook.

The walking trail resumes at that point and heads along Lincoln Street onto Bridge Street, following sidewalks to East Bridge Street. At Puritan Drive, the trail re-enters the woods in a newly built 1.5-mile section that runs along the Presumpscot River to Route 302, where the trail enters Portland and travels through the Riverton Trolley Park.

In Portland, the trail runs behind the Riverside Street recycling center and onto the Riverside Municipal Golf Course before entering Falmouth near the Maine Turnpike. The trail then re-enters Portland, making its way through neighborhoods and city-owned parks and school complexes to Back Cove and the East End Trail. The trail ends, 28 miles from Sebago Lake, at East End Beach on the Eastern Promenade.

Dave Kinsman, of the Mountain Division Alliance, which takes care of the section from the Otter Ponds to Mallison Falls, couldn’t be happier with the completion of the project.

“They’ve been a great partner,” Kinsman said of the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust, which originally advocated for the trail project. “I think both organizations have helped each other immensely moving forward with our projects. To connect Sebago Lake with Casco Bay, that was a big project for them and they’ve done a great job.”

While the trail piggybacks on existing trails above Westbrook, new trail had to be blazed in the Paper City. Wanting to stay off-road as much as possible, which in populated Westbrook proved a difficult prospect, the groups had to build 1.5 miles of trail from Puritan Drive to Route 302.

Peter Burke, of the city’s Recreation and Conservation Commission, said the local trails will help city residents gain access to a larger network of recreational paths.

“It’s a fantastic section of the trail,” Burke said of the newly built 1.5-mile Westbrook section. “People know it and love it already. I run that section and I see a lot of people out there. It’s still new, so people are still learning about it, but it’s all marked. It has nice signs all the way along, small signs on posts. And it really is great.”

Burke said Westbrook, which is about halfway along the 28-mile trail, also has a downtown connector trail that allows users to access restaurants and other amenities. The connector trail also incorporates the Westbrook Riverwalk, which follows the Presumpcot River from Saccarappa Falls to Black Bridge, a railroad trestle across the river that features a walking path.

Much of Westbrook’s section, however, is on sidewalks and runs through densely populated zones, a plus, Burke said, for nearby residents.

“When you look at where the trail is located, it goes through some very populated parts of the city. It’s sort of this green route that provides people opportunities to get off on a nice trail and get access to the river,” Burke said.

The Sebago to the Sea Trail also passes by Congin Elementary School and the Westbrook Community Center, which allows access to miles of trail in a city-owned forest that stretches to the Windham border.

Burke credits not only the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust for envisioning and helping guide development of the trail but also Portland Trails for helping to build the trail, especially from Puritan Drive to Route 302.

“Portland Trails was instrumental,” Burke said. “That’s the beauty of this trail, there were so many organizations involved.”

Jaime Parker, trails manager for Portland Trails, said the 22-year-old organization that maintains more than 30 miles of trail in Falmouth, Westbrook, South Portland and Portland, is excited to have a link to Sebago Lake.

“When the Presumpscot Regional Land Trust came to us and asked to join forces working on Sebago to the Sea, we said great, we’d love to make a regional connection,” Parker said. “We didn’t have a route in mind, but we knew we wanted to work with these folks and make something happen and we knew it would end in Portland, because that’s where the Sebago water meets the sea, in many ways, both through the pipe and through the river.”

Access is plentiful, Parker also said. Parking is available along the trail either at designated parking lots or on streets in Portland and Westbrook. And just because the trail is 28 miles long doesn’t mean shorter walks all along the way aren’t available.

“Whether they follow the trail all the way from Sebago Lake to the sea, or they just do a quarter-mile section in a part of Portland they’ve never seen, it’s a good way for people to be able to explore,” Parker said.

Peter Burke crosses one of several bridges built for the trail between East Bridge Street and the Presumpscot River in Westbrook. Burke, an avid mountain biker and landscape architect in Westbrook, was part of the coalition that helped develop the trail through the city.