[macNchz]

I've had this exact discussion with my friends a several times recently. We regularly go hiking and backpacking in the mountains of upstate NY and New England, and have independently noticed the trend of people 'peak bagging' instagram hotspots over the past couple of years.

It's tough because I'm a big fan of getting people outside, and this renewed interest in visiting national parks could in theory drive more funding and interest in wildlands preservation, but in the meantime has drawn hordes of people who don't always respect the place they're visiting.

There are microcosms of the instagram top spots phenomenon you've listed all over the place as well. This past summer I went to visit a backcountry waterfall in my hometown where locals used to cool off, and could not believe how many people there were there, some clearly from far away, taking pictures of themselves in front of it. The instagram location tag for it has thousands of posts, for a place that is pretty but not really spectacular.

Here's a story about a similar location that blew up on the internet and suffered for it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/nyregion/blue-hole-swimmi...