Just because Ed Warden lived alone in a tent all winter at the Bradbury Mountain State Park campground, doesn’t mean he’s been isolated.

Warden gets a ride to town regularly to purchase groceries and see newspapers. And from what he has seen, he didn’t have it all that bad in his tent.

“I saw all those huge snowbanks in the cities, like Portland and Boston,” Warden said last week, as he began making preparations for spring. “I read stories about peoples’ roofs collapsing. I think I was better off here. I just kept my little wood stove going and kept the roof of the tent clean.”

Warden is the camp host, a volunteer position, at the campground area of Bradbury Mountain State Park, located across Route 9 from the hiking area and the residence of Fritz Appleby, park manager. He shows campers where firewood is located, where they can set up a tent, where the trails are and answers any other questions he can.

He spent the summer and fall in his large tent at the head of the camping area, and then decided to stay there for the winter. Warden had spent the winter in a tent before, and had no qualms about doing it again. And it’s safe to say, judging by his demeanor last week, that Warden was unfazed by the severity of the winter of 2015.

He kept a pathway shoveled from his tent to the camp road, which is plowed for the few people who use the campground in winter. The snow piled high outside the tent – but not on top of it. Warden knew he couldn’t allow that to happen.

“During storms, every hour I got the snow off the roof with a long-handled broom, so the tent didn’t sag,” he said. “I pushed on the top of it from the inside, and used the broom outside. Now I’m just getting ready to greet new campers, hopefully in April.”

But Warden, who will be 68 on May 23, knows firsthand what kind of a winter it was.

“It’s been a long winter, but I was ready for it,” he said. “I was pretty well-prepared. I’m proud of myself, making it through this tough winter.”

Warden, whose last official address was Westbrook, chopped enough wood to burn a cord a month when the cold hit, and it hit early this winter – as in early November. He still has enough left to burn through April to ward off the damp air. But Warden is thinking spring. He’s packing his winter clothes and boots in plastic bins for storage in Westbrook. Now, he wants to see people enjoying nature, as he does.

“I love seeing the campers,” Warden said. “The regulars know me. One sent me a post card from California. The outdoors helps us. Nature is the best path to health.”

Warden uses the campground outhouses throughout the winter, and bathes by the sponge-bath method he learned while working in a nursing home. A friend does his laundry for him. Even in the dead of winter, he wasn’t without company.

“I go across the street to the ranger’s house all the time,” he said. “I go to the park and talk to hikers, and to the town maintenance shop.”

Warden has proven that tenting out for the entire winter is doable, but the fact is, few people do it. Kevin Nadeau of Durham, senior product developer for camping equipment at L.L. Bean, talks all the time to people who tent out. Never has Nadeau spoken to anyone who has spent the winter in a tent, though.

“Wow,” Nadeau said last week, when he heard of Warden’s feat. “He must be a hearty soul.”

Warden’s wood stove, Nadeau said, made the difference.

“The two biggest issues he probably faced were keeping the tent dug out, and really the biggest issue is keeping the moisture out of the tent,” Nadeau said. “If he didn’t have a wood stove, that would be a completely different story.”

Nadeau said that he and people he knows often go tenting, backpacking style. The buildup of moisture inside insulated sleeping bags is an issue, he said.

Warden is living a more rugged existence than most people would want to deal with, Nadeau said. On the other hand, he’s not in the middle of the woods.

“The reality is, he’s not living that much different than people lived not that long ago, but instead of a log cabin he has a tent,” Nadeau said.

The snow is receding from around the tent in which Ed Warden spent the winter at the Bradbury Mountain State Park camping area. Staff photo by Larry Grard

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