In another thread, Laurie P. from the ATC posted:
Having never seen the impact personally, I guess I never realized just how much the number of hikers has grown, nor the fact that this kind of concentrated use is unsustainable. By the time the bubble gets up my way, the herd has been thinned out and spread out.Fifty or more people a day leaving Springer, day after day, for weeks on end, is simply not sustainable for the A.T.--particularly the overnight sites. With the movies Wild and A Walk in the Woods in theaters this year, there will be even more.
Readimg Laurie's post made me realize the magnitude of this problem in a way I never have before.
Apart from any environmental impact, this problem is kind of scary when you consider how few options the land managers and NPS have to deal with this.
Sooner or later they will feel forced to.