Land snorkeling is the latest outdoors trend. So what exactly is it?

Let’s start with what land snorkeling isn’t:

It doesn’t involve flippers.

Or masks.

And forget diving.

Land snorkeling, according to its ethos, could be watching an army of ants re-engineer a driveway crack; noticing the perfect spheres of dew clinging to field grass; or studying the shape of water dancing over a river rock.

It’s studying your surroundings on land with a narrowed perspective, the way you would if you were floating on a snorkeling expedition.

Montana artists Clyde Aspevig and Carol Guzman created the term in the early 1990s after hiking outside the desert town of Sedona, Ariz. The two were struck by how the colors of the red sands complemented the greens of the succulents.

That’s when Guzman’s diving background bubbled up.

“We’re land snorkeling,” she recalled blurting out.

Fast forward more than a quarter century and their brainchild is now being touted by everyone from Fox News to Backpacker Magazine, which called it “the new trend that is taking hikers deeper.”

Guzman and Aspevig find humor in land snorkeling’s newfound popularity, but they’re serious about it as a way to connect to nature on a deeper level.

Land snorkeling “brings awe into your life,” Aspevig said.

The couple acknowledges it’s far from new. On some levels, land snorkeling has been practiced in Minnesota all along. Anyone who has spent time immersed in the prairie at Blue Mounds State Park in Luverne or focused on birds at their backyard feeder can claim land snorkeling — even if they didn’t attach an oddball name to their actions.

Forest bathing might be its closest recent e­quivalent. That wellness trend emerged in the early 1980s in Japan with a focus on soaking the senses in nature as a way to improve health. Related forest-bathing outings became common at places such as the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and in state and regional parks.

Guzman said the Scandinavian concept of friluftsliv, or open-air living, “tied in beautifully, too.”

At its essence, land snorkeling mirrors mindfulness practice. A University of Minnesota mindfulness instructor said it connects being fully engaged in the moment with fundamental Indigenous beliefs in the healing power of nature.

“I want to thank the people who coined the phrase because it is encouraging people to go inward,” said Mariann Johnson of the Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing. “It is just that lightness [of the word] that might bring people into it.”

When longtime Itasca State Park naturalist Connie Cox heard “land snorkeling” pop up on cable news, she and her husband, Bruce, had a good laugh.

“I said, ‘That is what we did as kids,’” Cox said, reminiscing about hours spent sitting in tall slough grass to see what might reveal itself.

Like Aspevig and Guzman, the couple spent their days outside exploring as children.

Whether called land snorkeling or forest bathing or mindfulness, Cox said she is OK with long-held, simple practices getting repackaged as something new.

“I am glad for people with a more urban setting,” she added. “An old thing with a new name? Great. It is a wonderful opportunity to engage people.”

The American Prairie, a central Montana nature preserve of more than 500,000 acres of public and private land, makes a point of sharing the land snorkeling gospel at its visitor center in Lewistown. Aspevig has been on the preserve’s board for more than 20 years.

“People said, ‘Well, I’ve been doing this all my life,’” Aspevig said. “It is finally a word for us with curious minds of what we have been doing forever. It has a broad spectrum of meaning for different people.”

Guzman said while land snorkeling has inspired the couple creatively, it is especially meaningful for young children who innately find wonder in an overlooked stick or rock or a muddy puddle.

“Kids want to get off the trail,” Guzman said.

Aspevig recalls days of his Montana youth spent lying on the ground and feeling the warmth of the sun and the coolness of the earth. He said the experiences awakened his senses and heightened his interest in nature’s mysteries.

“When you dive deeper into these things, it is not woo-woo,” he said. “We all have a degree of spirituality in us and it takes some stimulus to bring it forward.”