As you pass through all the landscapes of your life, there are certain rare moments when a particular view (and it may last only for a few seconds) seems transcendental -- more than just hills and trees and autumn color. It's a moment that tell you something about the worth of the world. The problem that most landscape photographers have to deal with is that they get their camera and go hunting for images and they find them, and they're usually "pretty" at best. They don't tell you (or your viewers) much of anything about anything, they're just the same hills and trees we see every day out the car window. They don't have that momentary transcendence.
One thing Ansel Adams was able to do was to see potential in a variety of landscapes, and then to be there when the moment occurred. But, this didn't happen every time he went out, or even very often -- but he knew where and when it might happen, and tried to be there. If you look at his best images (and he took clunkers like everybody else) you realize he probably didn't get one good image for every year of his shooting life. Probably more like one every five years. Jumping in your car on the odd Wednesday afternoon and driving off to no place in particular with your camera, probably isn't going to work. You have to have an intention, and have thought about that intention, and then execute it. I really believe that there is artistic potential in landscape photography, you just don't see it achieved very often.