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.

THURMAN, N.Y. The hikers strolled down the rock slab into Crane Mountain Pond, its surface lightly rippling on an overcast summer afternoon in the lower Adirondacks. “When in Rome, right?“ Emily Winslow said. The 23-year-old Manhattan native had slipped out of hiking shoes, sweat pants and damp T-shirt into a swimsuit. She waded in. “Oh, it’s cold.“

The Butterfly Society of Virginia will host Butterfly Festival 2009 on Sept. 26 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Virginia Beach. The festival is free and will feature speakers, walks in the butterfly garden, a tent filled with local butterflies, and crafts, including tips for raising a caterpillar. Butterfly-related books, novelties and plants to attract butterflies will be available for purchase.

A British teenager lost for 12 days while hiking in Australia’s Blue Mountains was found alive and well Wednesday, just hours before his father — who had all but given up hope of ever seeing him again — planned to fly back to England.

Legally blind hiking magazine editor says it’s easier for him to lose his way, but he had the skills to survive.

More than 100 people searched into the night for a visually impaired hiking magazine editor who was missing along the Appalachian Trail. Kenneth Knight, 41, of Ann Arbor, Mich., was last seen at the shelter on Punchbowl Mountain near Buena Vista on Sunday morning, said Randy Sutton, a spokesman for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Knight was hiking a more than 60-mile section of the trail near the parkway with six friends and failed to meet up with them Tuesday, Sutton said. When he missed his flight home to Michigan on Wednesday, friends reported him missing.

More than 100 people searched yesterday for a visually impaired hiking magazine editor who was missing along the Appalachian Trail. Kenneth Knight, 41, of Ann Arbor, Mich., was last seen at the shelter on Punchbowl Mountain near Buena Vista on Sunday morning, said Randy Sutton, a spokesman for the Blue Ridge Parkway. Knight was hiking a more than 60-mile section of the trail near the parkway with six friends and failed to meet up with them Tuesday, Sutton said. When he missed his flight home to Michigan on Wednesday, friends reported him missing.

More than 100 people searched today for a visually impaired hiking magazine editor who went missing along the Appalachian Trail in Virginia.

When it comes to getting outdoors during the winter months, Larry Rohr, Terry Rea and their disc golf compatriots follow the mail carriers’ code. “Neither rain nor snow . . . nor gloom of night” shall keep them from their appointed rounds.