Alta, Utah or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither town has any swimming worth planning around, so this should not decide the trip. Alta's nearest open water is the Great Salt Lake, which is too salty and shallow for a swim. Winter Park at least has Grand Lake and the Granby reservoirs within reach for boating and paddling, though the snowmelt water stays cold. In both, a swim really means a pool or a hot tub.

Winter Park gives you more choice at mealtimes. Alta's eating happens almost entirely inside the lodges, often half board at long communal tables, with slopeside cafeterias at lunch and no restaurant street at all. Anything different means driving down the canyon to Salt Lake City.

Winter Park is still ski-town food, but you can choose where to go: burgers and green chile at the base, barbecue and pizza along the highway, craft breweries, and a few dinner rooms serving elk and Rocky Mountain trout. Neighbouring Fraser adds a little more.

Neither town has sights in the usual sense, and both send visitors to the nearest city for museums: Salt Lake City from Alta, Denver from Winter Park. What history they have is different. Alta has the faint traces of a silver-mining camp on its slopes. Winter Park has the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a small homesteading museum in Fraser.

Winter Park has more of an evening. Alta offers a drink in a lodge bar and then bed, and regulars like it that way. For anything livelier you go to the neighbouring resort or down to Salt Lake City.

In Winter Park, the base bars fill up when the lifts close and the drinking carries on in pubs and brewery taprooms along the main road. Winter weekends and spring-break weeks can get loud. Still, the crowd is families and early risers, and nothing runs into the small hours.

Both are first-class mountain bases, and the difference lies in what kind of mountain each offers. Alta is about the snow itself: very deep, dry powder, steep varied skiing and serious avalanche terrain for backcountry touring. In summer the wildflowers of Albion Basin and the walk to Cecret Lake take over.

Winter Park offers a broader range of activities. It has groomed runs on one mountain and the bumps and trees of Mary Jane on the other, valley cross-country tracks, Berthoud Pass for backcountry skiing, and a well-known lift-served bike park in summer. The west side of Rocky Mountain National Park is close enough for a day among the elk and the high tundra.

The day trips are about level, and in both towns they hang on a mountain road that winter storms can close. From Alta, the obvious days out are Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the State Capitol, and the old silver-mining Main Street of Park City.

From Winter Park, Georgetown and Idaho Springs over Berthoud Pass offer the same Victorian mining-town character, with a narrow-gauge railway too. Grand Lake's boardwalk and Hot Sulphur Springs add a lake and a soak that Alta's list lacks, while Denver is a longer drive than Salt Lake City is from Alta.

Winter Park is far the stronger choice with children. Alta works only if the whole family skis. It has lessons and gentle runs at the base, but nothing else made for children, and storm days can keep everyone indoors during avalanche control.

Winter Park has long been a family favourite among Colorado ski areas. On top of a large children's ski school, it has snow tubing, sleigh rides and skating in winter, and an alpine slide, mini golf and easy bike trails in summer. The compact village and free shuttle make it easy to manage. Altitude affects children in both places.

At Alta, life in the village is easy because the lodges sit at the lifts, but everything else depends on one road up Little Cottonwood Canyon. It jams on powder mornings and closes after storms, and outside the ski season you need a car.

Winter Park's free shuttle links the ski base, town and Fraser, so a ski week works without driving. Lodgings are spread along the highway, though, and the trailheads and national park need a car. Arriving from Denver means the drive over Berthoud Pass.

Neither place is for shopping. Alta stops at ski rental, tuning and a few outdoor and souvenir shops. Winter Park has a bit more along the main road and in the base village, including bike shops and outdoor clothing, which helps if you have forgotten some gear. For real shopping you go to Salt Lake City or Park City from Alta, and to Denver from Winter Park.

Both are expensive in season, but Winter Park leaves you more ways to save. Alta has few beds, almost all of them in lodges with dinner included, and almost nothing cheap up the canyon. Visitors watching costs sleep in the Salt Lake valley and commute up.

Winter Park has condos and motels in Fraser that cost less than the base village, and their kitchens cut the restaurant bill. Summer brings lower rates and free trails, so a warm-season trip there can be much cheaper.

Winter Park has a little live music and Alta has essentially none. Alta has no venue of any kind, and the occasional summer event takes place at the neighbouring resort. Winter Park has free summer concerts and the odd festival in the town park, plus bands in the après bars in winter. For theatre or a symphony, you need Salt Lake City or Denver.

Winter Park is the better place to unwind. In Alta, relaxation means outdoor hot tubs, saunas and massage in the small lodge spas, with no thermal water. Its real luxury is silence: a tiny village, no nightlife, and snow deadening every sound on storm days.

Winter Park has the hot tubs and resort spas too, but it adds proper mineral bathing at Hot Sulphur Springs, half an hour west, where pools step down a hillside above the Colorado River. The base village is busy in ski season, so late spring and autumn are its calmer weeks.