I am currently re-reading LOTR in my forties and having done quite a lot of hiking since my childhood read-throughs, and filming various landscapes from the air

I am currently re-reading LOTR in my forties and having done quite a lot of hiking since my childhood read-throughs, and filming various landscapes from the air, I think I have a much greater appreciation of his descriptions. The journeys remind me a lot of backcountry hiking. A friend is reading the books to his son and they are finding the landscape descriptions thoroughly tedious. To me, they rarely seem long-winded and I enjoy slowing down to make sure I have more than a vague idea of what he's describing. I wonder quite frequently whether he had photos or views of actual places, or a strong and consistent imagination for each area, or perhaps just that this was something that mattered enough personally that he put in the detail where others did not.