Manfred and I chatted about his Brooks-Range transverse during his planning phase and the fist time I met he and his sons was in Fairbanks as they hopped in my car and I drove them 280 miles north at their starting point (and hiked in the first day with them before returning to my car). While I did it for free, that sort of thing is widely offered on Craigslist by non-taxi, non-uber folks who have a car and are willing to drive you were you need to go.
Years ago, I used Greyhound Bus to do a section of the John Muir Trail from Whitney going north. It required hitch-hiking to and from the trailhead, but once on Highway 395, one could use public transit.
While a member of CHAOS (Cal Hiking And Outdoor Society) at UC Berkeley, many of our local trips were possible on BART, AC Transit, etc. Wildcat Canyon, Tilden, Redwood and Lake Chabot are all accessible by BART/bus and I’ve done 20- to 100-km trips in those parks. I’m not familiar with the possibilities on the SF Peninsula, but there are some options in Marin County, of sure.
I live in Alaska now and non-Summer, the Alaska Railroad still allows “whistle-stop” service, so you can flag down a passing train or get dropped off wherever you want.
All backpacking trips in Denali NP are with public transit (buses contracted by NPS) because private cars aren’t allowed on the park road past the first 14? miles. The Alaska Railroad and private bus companies provide service to the park entrance. I’ve done that, almost, except we hitch-hiked to get there.
We’ve used public water taxis out of Homer to access hikes in Kachemak State Park (which is off the road system). Homer is accessible by bus or twin-prop from Anchorage.
All the hikes I’ve done on Kodiak, Adak, around Ketchikan, Juneau, and Craig (Prince of Wales Island) were with public transit, since there’s no other way to get there – you take the State Ferry or you fly in (jet, float plane, whatever).
Manfred used only public-transport for his traverse of Iceland. Even sent his 14-year-old daughter back halfway through (had planned to) on a bus to catch her plane home while he stepped up the pace for the rest of the trip. He wrote up a long trip report on that and on the Brooks Range traverse on BPL.
I’ve used ocean-going water taxis in New Zealand to complete a two-family, through-hike in Abel Tasman NP.
