Take, for example, the idea for the Kapitol Reef snorkel.

Logic dictates a revolutionary snorkel design would come from Australia or Hawaii or some other place where the sport is a popular, even daily activity. No one would peg a landlocked, high-elevation place such as Utah, where few people regularly snorkel, as the birthplace for such an invention.

Mark Johnson, a Salt Lake-area internal medicine doctor, has defied that notion. He has spent the past five years and thousands of dollars to develop the Kapitol Reef snorkel, which he hopes will make it easier for its users to breathe.

He decided there was a need for such a device when his wife tried snorkeling with traditional equipment in Hawaii in 1997 and panicked because she was having difficulty breathing.

Traditional snorkels force users who are inhaling to work against the ambient water pressure, which causes fatigue, lowers lung volume and can cause erratic breathing and anxiety.

Johnson used his medical knowledge to cobble together a prototype snorkel that regulates exhalation pressure and separates inhaled air from exhaled air using two internal tubes and valves.

The snorkel has other innovations as well.

It is dry, which means that if a wave crashes over it or a snorkeler accidently dips below the water surface to see a fish, it is virtually impossible to breathe in water. Johnson said you can use the device while standing under a waterfall and it won't fill with water.

Also, the clip used to attach it to a mask is designed in such a way as to not pull hair.

"It took us five engineers and two engineers just to design the clip," said Johnson, who built the first prototype out of an existing brand of snorkel using electrical tape.

The Kapitol Reef, a play on Utah's Capitol Reef National Park to honor the state where it was invented while getting in a snorkeling reference, has a higher price than most others. It costs $89 compared to a snorkel and mask combo available at many sporting goods stores for under $20. Still, he has high hopes of tapping into annual sales of 900,000 snorkels in the U.S. and 6.5 million worldwide.

He said the device is designed to make snorkeling easier for beginners, children and veterans of the sport alike by giving inhalation muscles more time to rest during each breathing cycle.

The mold for the snorkel was made by Metropolis Design in North Salt Lake. The snorkel is made in China.

Johnson said he continues to tinker with some of the designs. Some who have tried the snorkel initially find it harder to breathe through than traditional models. This is partly due to the design, which Johnson said improves the gas exchange in the lungs and also slows the respiratory cycle, preventing fatigue.

The snorkel's system of staying "dry" also results in slightly more underwater noise than traditional models.

Still, the device has received good reviews, including an editor's pick in the 2007 Sport Diver Magazine gear guide.

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* TOM WHARTON can be contacted at wharton@sltrib.com. His phone number is 801-257-8909. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.