It’s been called arduous and grueling. “It almost killed me,” one person said. But for a fourth year, cyclists from all over the state and even the country will pay for the chance to burn their legs on Vashon’s — and perhaps the region’s — tallest and most strenuous hills.

“Combining even two or three hills here is hard,” said Bruce Morser, an organizer of the Passport to Pain. “I can’t think of a single piece of this course that is not a challenge.”

The Passport to Pain (P2P), a bike ride that raises funds for the Vashon Island Rowing Club, strings together 18 of Vashon’s steepest hills for a total of 10,000 feet of elevation gain. Since it began in 2010, the ride has attracted an increasing number cyclists from both on and off the island.

Hoping to continue to grow the event, organizers this year have hired a paid ride coordinator, added more activities to the day and attempted to publicize the ride’s shorter and less difficult course offerings. It is expected to draw around 300 participants this year.

“Our vision for Passport to Pain in the future is it should be one of the premier rides in Puget Sound,” said Morser, a rower who is also credited with starting the event. “But it should also be one of the annual events the island looks forward too, like the sheepdog trials or an open house.”

Both volunteers and riders say that while P2P could one day join the ranks of popular rides such as RAMROD (Ride Around Mount Rainier in One Day), it offers altitude — and attitude — not found anywhere else.

For instance, checkpoints at every hill on Passport to

Pain have fun themes, including one where cyclists who have had enough can lie on a cot and drink a beer. Riders on Burma Road are chased by a devil, the Chamber of Commerce’s Jim Marsh in costume, imitating the Tour de France’s El Diablo. Those who complete the final hill are rewarded with streamers to tape to their handlebars. And the whole thing ends not with prizes for winners — organizers stress it’s a ride not a race — but with a barbeque.

“It has a lot more personality and a lot more fun,” said Nancy Foster-Moss, this year’s ride coordinator, noting that event sponsors and rowing club volunteers are expected to go all out with food and fun at the checkpoints this year, and riders can vote for their favorites in the end.

“I can tell you that virtually everybody who came to the finish line told me it was the best supported and one of the best rides generally they’ve been on,” said Scott Engelhard, a rowing club member.

Engelhard rode the full Passport to Pain course the first two years it was put on. The first time, he fell on his bike and dislocated his shoulder, but kept riding and finished anyway. The next year he rode again “to prove I could do it without killing myself.”

“It really is the bike equivalent of a marathon,” Engelhard said. “You have to train really hard, and really no matter how hard you train, it’s like one of the legs of the Tour de France. It’s brutally hard.”

Indeed, with 10,000 vertical feet over nearly 80 miles, the full course of Passport to Pain — appropriately dubbed the Idiot — has been called one of the toughest rides in the region. In fact, it has the same vertical gain as RAMROD, but in just half the distance.

Four years ago, the steep hills of Vashon were known mainly to island riders and visitors who rode over on the ferry. A group of men from the rowing club who also cycle would often talk over beer about the toughest hills, comparing them and challenging each other to see how many they could do in one ride. It was Morser who eventually turned the men’s friendly competition into an official event.

“We kept adding more and more hills, and we got the idea that what if we strung to hills into one event,” he said. “We realized this would be a very interesting ride that people from off-island would like.”

At the beginning of P2P, each rider is given a passport, which is then stamped at each of the 18 checkpoints along the route. Riders secure their passport with a donation of $100, and in past years they received a rebate for each stamp. However, almost all riders donated the entire $100 anyway, and it was time consuming for volunteers to calculate and give rebates, according to Colby Atwood, president of the rowing club. So this year each passport stamp will instead get riders entries into raffles for “cool swag,” he said.

“Obviously the refund was not the big motivator to get people to go to the checkpoints, so we thought a raffle would be more fun,” he said.

In addition to the 80-miler, there are shorter rides offered at P2P. The Weasel climbs 6,300 vertical feet over 50 miles, and even The Weenie is not for the faint of heart, with 3,400 feet of elevation gain over 30 miles. Cyclists can also compete as teams, either riding the course together or treating it as a relay, with each rider doing a small portion.

Morser said he hopes that these optiongs will encourage more Vashon riders to participate. Last year, he said, just one in four or five riders was from the island.

“We don’t want people to think this is for a bunch of hot-shot riders from off-island,” he said.

Atwood agreed, though he admitted he himself couldn’t complete The Weenie without training unless “the lives of my wife and children depended on it,” he said.

“It’s a tough ride, but it’s something that’s Vashon-ish. It’s unusual, it’s weird and something the community can get involved in,” he said, even if just to stand on the side of the road and “watch poor suckers stagger by.”

With around 300 riders expected and more sponsors than ever, this year’s ride could bring in up to $20,000 for the rowing club. Rowing coach Richard Parr, also the rider who claimed “it nearly killed me,” said the funds raised are badly needed by the club and will go toward the purchase and maintenance of equipment. Last year the club, which puts hundreds of volunteer hours into P2P, was able to purchase five new boats, in part because of money raised at the event.

“Quality equipment can make a difference of a few seconds in a race,” Atwood said.

Parr said he believes the Passport to Pain has become a success in part because of the interaction and support on the course, and unlike other bike rides, “you never feel alone.”

“When you do Passport to Pain you feel valued,” he said. “We appreciate people coming to do it and donating to the rowing club, and that comes out.”