I'm a veteran of 85 off-road treks now in my Land Rovers over the past 4 1/2 years. 95% of these treks in
northern Nevada. That said, and for my particular rigs and the areas that I wander, a snorkel is
absolutely non-essential:
If you are trying to cross anything over about 20 inches deep in northern Nevada it will be a raging flood torrent or a reservoir;
neither of which anyone sane should attempt.
As far as preventing dust ingestion into the filter; forget it. The dust clouds
usually exceed 40 feet in height and the air entering from inside the fenders is oh so much cleaner.
Best results here are to stick with the oem paper filters, keep all the connections tight, change the filter about every 8000 miles, vacuum out the baffle in the air box about every 4000 miles and just keep truckin'.
No one living east of Reno owns a snorkel. If we ever see one it is usually on a rig with a license plate frame from San Francisco or Marin Conty, CA - and is always on the pavement just passing thru - - Those same rigs usually equipped with shiny black monster tires, 6 inch lift, chromed diff covers, chromed a-bars, chromed steps, rapper paint graphics...