Does anyone know if grey hound bus lines are a good way to meet up with friends up in maine. I have a couple of weeks to try to rendevous with 2 NOBO thru hiker friends and it is hard to communicate with them and Maine seems like the access to the AT is hard via greyhound line/dropoff. Any suggestions? Oh yea, I have no car.
Ohioan
Having just looked at Greyhound’s Maine service/schedule, it doesn’t look like there is much, if any bus service that’ll get you near the AT or any significant Maine Trail town.
If your friends are in Southern Maine, you can get to Gorham NH by bus, and then either hitch or arrange a shuttle to where you need to be to meet up with them. I’d check out the excellent list of shuttlers at www.atconf.org
For hikers who are further north, if you don’t have a car or don’t wish to pay for a lengthy (and probably expensive shuttle) your best option is to hitch.
The trail mileage between Monson Me and Baxter Peak in Katahdin is presently 114.5 miles.
B. Jack
Left out the last bit: The first few days North of Monson are moderate to strenuous, while the last three or four days (depending on your pace) are pretty much flat. There are both mountainous and swampy parts, with more of the former. Most hikers take six to eight days to complete the stretch from Monson to Baxter State Park, with an additional day to summit Katahdin.
B. Jack
“Most hikers take six to eight days to complete the stretch from Monson to Baxter State Park, with an additional day to summit Katahdin.”
Please note that this is perhaps the case with Thru-hikers, but if you are going to meet up with thru-hikers, you may not be able to keep up that pace. It largely depends on the kind of shape you are in.
A thru-hiker that was going through the 100 miles around the same time as I was had a friend meet him in Monson to hike the final stretch with him. I remember him being miserable even BEFORE the 24 hours of downpour bestowed upon us from the remnants of some hurricane. At that point, he said, “I’m in way over my head,” and hitched out at parking area by one of the dirt roads. That was just over 30 miles in.
Also, and i don’t want this to come across the wrong way, make sure your friends really do want you to still meet up with them. At first I had thought about how great it would be to have friends from home meet me for the final stretch up Katahdin, but at the end was kinda glad I didn’t plan for that. With the friends I had made and was hiking with, I wanted badly to focus my attention on spending our last week together.
None of this is to discourage you. Just some things to think about.
Leki-Less
Well, Miranda and I are originally from Maine (most recently Bangor actually). There aren’t any bus lines in western Maine. There is a great bus line called Concord Trailways (www.concordtrailways.com). They will take you from Boston to Bangor. From Bangor, you can take Cyr Bus Line to Medway, Maine. That’s about 20 minutes (drive) from Katahdin. You can take a taxi if you wanted to. If you were meeting them in other locations in Maine… Concord Trailways stops at Portland (Maybe Dover, NH too) before hitting Bangor. Greyhound makes all those stops as well as Augusta (I believe). Greyhound is more expensive. Your best bet, if you want to meet them someplace other than Katahdin, is get to the closest major city (Portland, Augusta, etc) and rent a car. The cost of renting a car will be about the same as taking all those bus lines and taxis. The other option is to hitch. 
Dave and Miranda