Alta, Utah or Durango, Colorado?

Neither town is a swimming destination, but Durango at least has water to get into. In summer there is a small swimming area at Lake Nighthorse, a few sandy edges at Vallecito Lake and tubing on the Animas through town, all of it chilly even in July. In Alta, swimming means the lodge pool or hot tub, and the Great Salt Lake below is no place for a swim.

Food is one of the clearer differences. In Alta you eat where you sleep: set dinners at communal tables on half board, cafeteria lunches on the mountain, and Utah's liquor rules shaping how drinks are served. If you want variety, you drive down the canyon to Salt Lake City.

Durango has a proper restaurant street. Main Avenue has green-chile plates, steakhouses, breakfast cafés and a few kitchens cooking Colorado lamb and trout, and the town's many craft breweries give evenings a focus. It is not a food trip either, but you can pick a different place to eat each night.

There is a modest but real set of sights in Durango and almost none in Alta. In Durango you can fill an unhurried afternoon with the steam locomotives, the depot and roundhouse museum, the brick and sandstone Victorian blocks downtown and the college's Southwestern and Native American collection.

Alta's past as a silver-mining camp that became one of the West's early ski areas survives only as old mine workings on the slopes. There is no museum or historic building to visit, and for anything more you go down to Salt Lake City.

Both towns go to bed early, but Durango gives you more of an evening first. You can move between brewery taprooms, patios on Main Avenue and old saloons with a piano player, and the student bars are busier at weekends, though almost nothing stays open late. In Alta the evening is an après-ski drink in the lodge bar and then bed. For anything livelier you go to the neighbouring resort or Salt Lake City.

Both towns are here for the outdoors, and they are close to level. Alta is the specialist. It has deep, dry powder on steep slopes at around 2,600m and serious backcountry touring, and in summer there are the wildflower meadows of Albion Basin and the walk to Cecret Lake.

Durango is the all-rounder. Mountain-bike trails leave from the edge of town, the Colorado Trail starts just north, the Animas has rafting and fly-fishing, and the Weminuche Wilderness rises above it all. That makes Durango stronger in summer, and its ski resort half an hour north covers winter. Pick Alta for snow and Durango for variety across the seasons.

Durango has much the better choice of day trips. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings, the narrow-gauge train to Silverton, Ouray under its cliffs and the ancestral Puebloan ruins at Aztec and Chimney Rock make several strong days out, as long as you have a car.

From Alta you can go to Salt Lake City for Temple Square and the State Capitol, to Park City for its old Main Street, or to Ogden, and after that Utah's national parks are many hours away. In winter every trip also depends on the canyon road staying open.

Durango is far easier with children. The steam train, gentle rafting and tubing, the alpine coaster and ziplines at the ski area and the ladders at Mesa Verde will fill a week. The town is relaxed and has riverside parks, though there are no zoos or big museums for a wet day.

Alta works only if the whole family skis. It has a ski school and gentle terrain near the base, but nothing else built for children. Its higher altitude and the storm days spent indoors during avalanche control make it harder going with young ones.

You need a car more in Durango, while Alta's weak point is its road. Once you are in Alta it is easy: the lodges are at the lifts, many are ski-in, ski-out, and a shuttle runs in winter. But everything depends on one canyon road up from Salt Lake City, about 50km away, which jams on powder mornings and closes after storms.

Durango's historic centre is small and flat, about a quarter of an hour on foot from end to end, with a riverside trail and a trolley along the main street. The trailheads, the ski area and Mesa Verde, though, are spread along mountain highways, so most visitors hire a car.

Durango offers an hour or two of real browsing, while Alta mostly offers ski rental. Main Avenue has outdoor gear, Western boots, galleries and Navajo and Pueblo turquoise and silver that are worth a look. Alta's shops are for tuning skis and buying a branded souvenir, so keen shoppers go to Park City or Salt Lake City.

Durango is the cheaper base, though neither is a bargain. Alta has few beds, almost all in ski lodges with high rates in season and dinner often included, so skiers watching costs stay in the Salt Lake valley and travel up each day. Durango is still a mountain resort, expensive at the height of summer and the ski season and needing a hire car, but its rooms cost less than in the famous Colorado ski towns, spring and late autumn are noticeably cheaper, and its trails and river are free.

Alta has no theatre or concert venue at all. Evenings are spent in the lodge, and for a concert you go to Salt Lake City. Durango's offering is small but there is something on in summer: a long-running chamber and orchestral festival, touring acts at the college concert hall, and Western shows such as a Victorian melodrama and cowboy music with a chuckwagon supper. Outside summer the choice is thin there too.

Durango is the better place to unwind because of its hot springs. The mineral pools a few minutes north of town, the terraced pools at Pagosa Springs and Ouray's spring-fed pools offer a proper soak in natural hot water, which Alta does not have.

Alta's wellness is hot tubs in the snow, saunas and small lodge spas, with no thermal water. Its strength is the quiet: early evenings and storm days when the snow muffles everything, which a tired skier will find restorative.