His feet were sore. His toes and heels threatened to blister. They had taken him across ponds, through wetlands and tall grass, under the cover of pines and oaks, over soft moss and hard asphalt, around the bends, down the valleys and up the hills.

At 13, Alec Lengyel was the youngest participant in the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank’s annual Cross-Island Hike on Saturday. He’s walked it before, but only in portions. This was his first time doing the whole thing, all 15.2 miles. A resident of Falmouth, Alec came over on the ferry with his father, James, the executive director of the land bank, early Saturday morning. He kept up with the brisk pace even as most of the other hikers faded early. People around him lost their energy; their feet and bones told them to go home. Some contemplated hitchhiking to the finish.

The ridges in Chilmark made Alec, too, consider quitting. “Up those hills,” he said over the phone Monday morning, “[I] thought I was going to collapse.”

But when the path opened up to Vineyard Sound that afternoon, and the bright sun formed a haze over the cliffs surrounding the secluded beach that served as finish line, Alec got a second wind and ran the last few steps to the shore. It was all worth it. A journey begun by 60 walkers that morning at Duarte’s Pond in West Tisbury ended at Great Rock Bight Preserve in Chilmark with 14 who’d walked it all and others who’d joined in along the way. Alec was one of the 14 who’d be getting a long-awaited certificate in the mail for completing it all.

“It was stunningly gorgeous,” he said. “I was really tired but proud of myself.”

In its 16th year, the land bank’s Cross-Island Hike is a celebration of national trails day, the first Saturday in June. It brings out everyone from the experienced hikers — a few who have walked it every year of its existence — to newcomers attempting it on a whim. Walkers this year came from places as far as Washington, D.C., and Maine. Some had come solely for the walk. It was a chance to challenge their bodies and their wills, to discover new beauty and to encounter new acquaintances.

“The point of the walk is to expose people to trails across the Island,” said Bill Veno of the land bank, who has plotted the hike’s changing course for the past 10 years. “And to show how people can get to conservation properties, perhaps without cars.”

At the beginning of the walk, everyone circled around Mr. Veno as he made his opening comments.

He explained that the hike had been longer in the past. “It gets shorter as I get older,” he said to chuckles in the crowd. He later explained that the hike is usually between 17 and 20 miles, depending on the year. In one of the early years, it stretched for 28 miles. “It’s still a legend in many of the hikers’ minds,” he said over the phone Monday.

The crowd that gathered around him varied in preparation. The most prepared sucked water from their Camel Packs. They wore comfortable hiking shoes, their pants were tucked in to their long socks and hats covered their ears while walking sticks supported their weight. Others looked dressed for a stroll through the park.

Mr. Veno warned the crowd: There would be dangers ahead. Ticks and poison ivy blended menacingly into the overgrown vegetation, waiting to lash out at exposed legs. The people wearing shorts squirmed a little. “But the good news is there’s no bears,” he joked.

The hike began with a long line of people stretched along the path. Movement was restricted and you had to get used to your position in the line. Your eyes studied the ground for hazardous rocks and roots, and you became quite familiar with the shoes of the person in front of you.

Larry Kalish walked with a cup of Mocha Mott’s coffee. He wore a bright orange hat, but in the early moments the most noticeable thing about him was his laces. They had freed themselves from their knots and danced precariously around Mr. Kalish’s black and white Reeboks. He stopped for a moment, set down his coffee by a fern and tied them. Moments later they were relashed and would stay that way the rest of the walk.

Mr. Kalish, a resident of Lake Hopatcong, N.J., has participated in the hike for six years. He comes out to the Island for only a couple of weeks of the year, but when he’s here, he makes a point of going on the hike because it shows him new places to walk.

Sweat collected on the hair that poked out of the back of his hat, and as the group moved over a barely beaten path through a field of tall grass, he turned back and said, “Bet you never went through this in cross country.”

At times, the view was breathtaking. The last winds of winter now past, the Island was finally plush. Trees were explosions of green; their branches formed tunnels over the trails, and the light that filtered through produced a summer euphoria that distracted the mind from the pains of the body.

The path weaved past properties with backyard pools, and hikers fantasized about a quick dip. When the procession passed by stables, horses trotted over to examine the passersby, and hikers fantasized about stealing them for the rest of the trip. A snake slept in the grass just feet from the trail. As the hikers moved past, most reacted quietly and veered away, warning the person behind them to watch out. One girl jumped and ran far off the path in the opposite direction. “Oh my god, I hate snakes,” she said.

The brisk pace of the walk led the once-continuous line to separate into clusters. Each group had its own interesting conversation and much could be overheard.

“You’re pretty Google-able, right?” a D.C. writer asked her friend, referring to the ease with which the friend could search for herself online.

“If you’re in India, why would you want to go into a Starbucks?” a woman with an English accent asked another hiker.

As two high school girls passed by the playground at West Tisbury school, they reminisced about the childhood they’d spent playing there. They were seniors now, about to leave their comfort zone. “This is a big moment,” one said to the other.

An older gentleman in a flannel shirt walked through the scrub oak and talked to the man in front of him. “And that’s when I knew I was in a gang fight.”

It was hard to catch the whole story behind every quote, and embarrassing to admit to eavesdropping, so some comments were left to rattle around the wandering mind.

When the survivors made it to the secluded Chilmark beach, some tore off their boots and socks and ran to the water to dip their aching feet in the still-frigid water. They gathered around Mr. Veno one last time as he offered his congratulations. Without much fanfare, they said their goodbyes and departed to find their ways back to their cars, some of which were on the other side of the Island.