Also known as Mesar Kund, this small forest pond above Sarmoli is one of the closest treks to SamathaStay — under an hour on foot, and wrapped in its own local legend.
Photo: anurag agnihotri, CC BY 2.0
Maaheshwari Kund — locally also called Mesar Kund or Meshar Kund — is a small forest pond tucked into the hills right above Sarmoli, the village SamathaStay calls home. Sitting at around 2,450m, it's one of the shortest and easiest walks in the Munsiyari area, and about as close to a headline trek as you'll find within a stone's throw of the homestay.
The path up to Mesar Kund is a stone-laid trail of a little under 1.5km through oak and rhododendron forest, and most people reach the pond in well under an hour — a rough guide of 45 minutes each way is enough for planning. Along the way there's a smaller pond, which makes a natural resting point before the main kund a few minutes further on. It's rated an easy climb, well suited to families and to anyone at SamathaStay looking for a short outing rather than a full day on the trail.
Sarmoli's own telling of the pond's past centres on a Yaksha — a semi-divine forest spirit — said to have lived in its waters and fallen in love with the daughter of the village's sarpanch (headman). When the match was refused, the story goes, he cursed the village and the lake, and the water dried up as a result. Villagers are said to still perform a ritual of appeasement, and it's the kind of local folklore you're more likely to hear from a homestay host in Sarmoli than read in a guidebook.
The pond and the forest around it are also the site of the Mesar Van Koutik, or Mesar Forest Fair, held each year around Budh Purnima (the May full moon) — worth timing a visit around if it lines up with your stay. Outside of that, the trail is walkable most of the year, though the monsoon months bring mud and leeches on this stretch, as they do across much of the Munsiyari area, so late spring and the post-monsoon autumn months tend to be the more comfortable windows.
SamathaStay in Sarmoli sits close enough to Mesar Kund that it makes an easy morning or evening walk straight from the homestay — ask us for directions to the trailhead.