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You get out of a hobby what you put into it.
Subject, lighting, composition and your skill >>>>>> gearfaggotry, in all cases. Typically, the places where people go backpacking are stunningly beautiful, so ANY kind of camera, if only to take snapshots, is way better than no camera at all. You'll never be able to photograph the most beautiful montane landscape with the best golden hour lighting without any camera. At a minimum, your iPhone can do a lot, if that's all you bring.
That said, even though iPhone cameras are very advanced these days, there are reasons to get a "real camera." Tl;dr is that DSLR's and mirrorless cameras allow more creative control, and also tend to produce images that look better (than an iPhone) when enlarged. An advanced point-and-shoot, like the Sony RX100, is somewhere in between, although I haven't used the latest models which are quite a bit more advanced than the first iteration which I do have experience with.
You can go to /p/ for specific camera recommendations. I'll just talk about a few overarching themes:
1. Weather-sealed cameras are nice (you can get photos like pic related), but you need a weather-sealed lens to complete the system, and despite what Pentaxians will tell you, you shouldn't rely on a camera's weather sealing except for short periods at a time. It's also not THAT HARD to keep a camera dry. Most regular cameras will survive getting minor spray on them, and there aren't a lot of good shots you can only get while your camera is being rained on. You'll also realize that many of your favorite lenses aren't weather-sealed anyway. Overall, I'd say it's NOT worth going out of your way to get a weather-sealed camera.
2. Any DSLR or mirrorless camera is better than any point-and-shoot for landscape photography. Sensor size almost always means better detail retention at the pixel level, which is what you want when photographing some mountain or landscape. The little details can really make the photo.
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