Summer is coming and perhaps you feel you don’t really know and understand the Island. There are beaches and towns but then there is the great expanse of forest and fields. How to access all that nature, where to start and is permission needed?

Well, for anyone pondering these exact thoughts the annual cross-Island hike has arrived just in time. Since 1993, to celebrate National Trails Day which occurs on the first Saturday in June, the land bank has hosted a different lengthy hike each year tackling a part of the Island. Anyone participating over the decades has witnessed the entire Vineyard from ground level, over hill and dale, past rock wall and ancient way.

This year’s hike begins at Blackwater Pond Reservation on Lambert’s Cove Road in West Tisbury and ends, many hours later, at the Big Bridge at State Beach, Edgartown. The route is 15.2 miles long and most likely will end in a jump off the bridge to cool off.

The guided hike begins at 8:30 a.m. on June 1.