Just to add to this, I saw a picture of the parking lot on Clingman's Dome in the Smoky mountains the other day, and thought "Holy shit, that is a lot of people, it wasn't like that when I was frequenting the park". Back then (not even that long ago) I remember the goal was to be on top when no one else was, and I succeed frequently, and have the pictures to show for it.

http://hikinginthesmokys.blogspot.com/2011/01/great-smoky-mo...

The population is doubling every 33 years, and that means everything is getting a lot more congested, because new landmarks aren't being created at anything like those rates.