Helvetia lured us up and around switchbacks, through coal mining campuses and trailer parks.

Traveling with photographer Pat Jarrett and his wife Carmel, we headed toward a small community of 59 people nestled in a high mountain valley of West Virginia. There we found the pre-Lent and almost pagan holiday of Fasnacht: fried pastries, homemade wine, a night parade, square dancing, and papier-mache masks made to scare off the cold.

Some people had compared it to Mardi Gras, though the mountains of West Virginia are a stark contrast to the Crescent City.