Hot Spring in Beesil Shigar

A picture of the room made over the well

"The name literally means “hot water” in the local Balti tongue. In Chutran, there is a medicinal hot springs. Over the decades, the spa has become popular with the local people, who are even coming from beyond Hunza (15 hours by road) to soak in the 40-plus degree Celsius water. Nestled at the base of the northeast side of the Haramosh Range, Chutron is partially shaded and thereby relatively cool. Its scalloped terraced wheat fields are intercrossed by footpaths and stone field boundaries, all of which conspire to provide beautifully pastoral views and retains a primitive charm, seemingly stuck in in the 19th century"

How are Hot Springs Created?

When we talk about hot or thermal springs, these are defined as springs where the temperature of water lies significantly above the mean annual air temperature of the region.” A mineral spring is defined as one that contains a reading of 400 parts/million of total dissolved solids. Both types of spring are found from Mexico to Alaska.
In the case of the thermal springs in the Rockies, their formation tends to be quite consistent. As rain falls on the surrounding peaks, it percolated into the rather porous sedimentary rocks. As it descends through the rock, it picks up a variety of materials, everything from radium to sulphur. Also, as it moves further beneath the surface, it heats up from the primal heat of the Earth. Eventually, it encounters a large thrust fault, or crack. As water descends behind it, it forces the now heated water to ascend along the fault-line to surface as a hot or warm spring. In Banff, it is the Sulphur Mountain Thrust Fault that is responsible for the 8 hot and warm springs along the lower slopes of Sulphur Mountain. Also critical in the creation of a hot spring, is an express route to the surface. If the water moves slowly from depth to the surface, it will cool back down before it bubbles out as a spring. Luckily, since many of these springs occur in limestone formations, The openings allowing the water to the surface may be enlarged by dissolving of the limestone to create a virtual pipeline to the surface. This assures a quick trip and warm waters.

Life In And Around Hot Springs

Like most mountain environments, hot springs support an abundance of life even long before they reach the surface. The sulphur smell is caused by anaerobic bacteria living deep beneath the Earth’s crust (see next topic). Once the springs surface, they offer opportunities not found elsewhere. The warm water allows an abundance of algae and bacteria to live. For many years a species of fish, the long-nosed dace, survived only in the outflow of the Cave & Basin Hot Springs. Unfortunately, it has now joined the dodo bird in the realm of extinction. Numerous other species of tropical fish survive in the outflow from the Cave & Basin in a small section of Vermilion Lakes.
The warm water also allows an abundance of life surrounding the waters to survive. It creates a microscopic world where the climate is warmer than the remainder of the Rockies. Plants like watercress, not found elsewhere in the Canadian Rockies, thrives in the warm runoff. Reptiles like the garter snake, and amphibians like long-toed salamanders also survive only adjacent to these warm runoff channels. It’s a world unlike any other area of the mountains.

That Pleasant Aroma

Just where does that odour come from? It reminds you of rotten eggs and clears your sinuses better than nasal mist. The smell is a result of H2S (Hydrogen Sulphide), a gas similar to natural gas. It results from anaerobic bacteria converting some of the dissolved sulphur in the water to H2S. Springs like the Upper Hot Spring and Cave & Basin in Banff, and Miette Hot Springs in Jasper, exhibit this pungent stench. The presence of H2S indicates that the water has penetrated to
great depths. As the water percolates deeply into the crust, pressure increases, and this allows anaerobic bacteria to convert sulphur in the form of sulphate to the sulphide of H2S. This normally is followed by a quick trip to the surface in order to retain the H2S created. A slow surface route may retain the gas only if the passage excludes oxygen, allowing the anaerobic bacteria to continue their work. There must also be a large initial concentration of H2S created at depth. This can be seen in springs like Radium where the water reaches the surface through aerated caves which allow the H2S to oxidize before it reaches the surface – the end result – no smell.