Altyn-Arashan Spring is located 22 km southeast of the city of Karakol in the valley of the Arashan River. In this area, several groups of springs with anomalously high water temperatures are known, but only the middle group, located on the right bank of the Arashan River 200 m below the mouth of its right tributary, the Anarty River, at absolute elevations just over 2400 m, is used more or less regularly. A local balneotherapy center has been organized here, utilizing two small bathing pools covered by unremarkable structures.
In the hottest outlets, the water of Altyn-Arashan reaches temperatures of up to 50°C, with a mineralization of about 350 mg/l, a sodium bicarbonate-chloride composition with an increased sulfate ion content, overall very similar to the composition of Ak-Suu, Alamedin, and Issyk-Ata; the water of Altyn-Arashan contains up to 8 mg/l of dissolved hydrogen sulfide, up to 25 mg/l (and according to some analyses, even nearly 100) of silicic acid, and up to 16 mg/l of fluoride, which further aligns it with the water of Ak-Suu. Among the microcomponents, the presence of copper, lead, arsenic, silver, antimony, molybdenum, boron, lithium, rubidium, cesium, and others has been established.
The amount of water with temperatures above 40°C in the Altyn-Arashan springs barely reaches 1 l/s, but the overall resources of the thermal area are assessed as quite significant, at least not inferior to those of Ak-Suu or Alamedin. Drilling wells here will undoubtedly lead to the emergence of a large amount of water with temperatures much higher than 50°C, part of which can be used for local heating and heating greenhouses in the subsidiary farm.
