FRONT ROYAL The Skyline Drive specializes in solitude mixed with pulse-racing exhilaration. You can get that three ways as autumn colors come alive across the Blue Ridge Mountains. You can bike it, all 105 miles of the Skyline Drive’s ups, downs, twists and vistas. You can hike its backcountry trails through a land of ridges, waterfalls, hardwood forest and pesky bears.

A man airlifted from the Blue Ridge Parkway this week falsely reported being bitten by a snake, authorities determined today. “Based on information developed in our investigation, on the scene and speaking to folks, things are not pointing toward snake envenomization,“ said Ridge District Ranger Kurt Speers. Rescuers found a 48-year-old man lying semiconscious in the Dripping Rock area near mile marker 9 on the parkway Tuesday afternoon. A passer-by told authorities the man had been bitten five times by a timber rattler, information later passed on to another man who photographed the victim being airlifted to the University of Virginia.

The number of annual visitors to the Blue Ridge Parkway dropped by more than a million last year as American motorists apparently decided to forgo scenery and save gas.