Alta, Utah or Flagstaff?

You won't swim much in either. Alta is a mountain village where water means a lodge pool or a hot tub, and the Great Salt Lake below is not for bathing. Flagstaff at least has Oak Creek Canyon on the road to Sedona, where Slide Rock's cold creek pools give families a summer dip, though they are crowded at weekends.

Food is a weak point in both, but Flagstaff gives you far more choice. In Alta you eat in lodge dining rooms on half board and at slopeside cafeterias, and Salt Lake City is the only escape for variety.

Flagstaff has a cluster of craft breweries around downtown and the Southside, plus diners, Mexican and New Mexican kitchens and regional touches such as Navajo tacos and green chile. None of it is worth travelling for, but you can eat somewhere different every night.

Alta has almost nothing to see. A few mining traces on the slopes are all that remain of its silver-camp past, and museums mean a trip down to Salt Lake City.

Flagstaff's list is short but real. The Lowell Observatory, where Pluto was found, the Hopi, Navajo and Zuni collections of the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Riordan Mansion and the brick Route 66 downtown fill a day or two. There are also Sinagua ruins close by.

After dark, Alta offers a drink in the lodge bar and then bed, which is just how its regulars like it. Flagstaff is no party town either, but its taprooms, cocktail bars and old Route 66 saloons are only a short walk apart downtown and in the Southside, and students liven up the weekends during term.

Both are outstanding bases for the outdoors, but of different kinds. Alta is all about snow: steep, deep powder at around 2,600m and serious backcountry touring. In summer there are the wildflowers of Albion Basin and the walk to Cecret Lake, all within one canyon.

Flagstaff trades that focus for range. Humphreys Peak, the ponderosa forest, Sunset Crater's lava flows, Sedona's red rock and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon are all within reach, and the dark skies make stargazing part of the outdoors. Skiing there is a sideline, whereas in Alta it is the whole point.

From Alta, the day out is essentially Salt Lake City or Park City's old Main Street, and in winter even those depend on a canyon road that closes after storms. Flagstaff has much more to choose from: Sedona, hillside Jerome, the cliff dwellings of Montezuma Castle, Walnut Canyon, the railway from Williams to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi mesas. The drives are longer and you need a car, but there is far more variety.

Alta suits families only if everyone skis. There is a children's ski school and gentle terrain at the base, but nothing else is built for children, and storm days can keep everyone indoors.

Flagstaff is much easier with children. It has observatory evenings, the museum's dinosaurs, rope courses in summer and sledding in winter, plus the wildlife park near Williams and the creek pools of Oak Creek. In both places the altitude tires small children for the first day or so.

Alta is the one of the two where a winter stay works without a car. Once you are up the canyon, you walk or ski from your lodge to the lifts. Everything depends on the single road up Little Cottonwood Canyon, though. On a powder morning the ride up from Salt Lake City can become a slow queue, and after a storm the road may be shut altogether. In summer that car-free ease is lost, because the buses largely stop running.

Flagstaff has the opposite problem. The town itself is easy on foot or by bike. What you came for, though, is spread across the plateau, from Sedona to the Grand Canyon rim, so in every season a hire car or a seat on a tour is part of the plan, with snow on the mountain roads in winter.

In Alta, shopping means ski rental and outdoor gear, and little more. Flagstaff is modest too, but it has something genuinely worth buying: Navajo rugs, Hopi kachina carvings, pottery and turquoise jewellery. These are sold in downtown galleries, the museum shop and trading posts, and are best bought from established dealers or from the artists themselves.

Flagstaff is the cheaper stay by some distance. Alta's beds are few and almost all in lodges that charge high rates in season, usually with dinner included. Budget travellers sleep in the Salt Lake valley and ride up each day.

In Flagstaff, chain motels along Route 66 and brewery meals keep costs moderate. Rooms do climb on summer weekends, though, and a hire car and park fees add up.

Alta has none. Evenings are spent in the lodge, and a concert means driving to Salt Lake City. Flagstaff can fill an evening, with the Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra and university musicians on campus, touring and folk acts at the restored Orpheum Theater, and outdoor concerts in the pines in summer, though none of it is a reason to choose the town.

Neither is a spa destination, and both offer the calm of a quiet mountain town. In Alta it comes after skiing: hot tubs steaming in the snow, saunas and small lodge spas, in a village so hushed that sleep comes easily.

Flagstaff has a few day spas, but its real restorative side is the cool, pine-scented evenings and starry skies. For proper treatments you drive an hour down to Sedona's resort spas and yoga studios.