Aspen or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither town has a beach, so swimming is equally limited in both. What differs is the summer water. Around Aspen you raft or fish the Roaring Fork, or sit by small alpine lakes. From Winter Park you paddle and boat on Grand Lake and the Granby reservoirs. Either way the snowmelt is too cold for a proper swim, and the hotel pool or the hot springs do that job.

Aspen eats far better. Its downtown grid has chef-led dining rooms, sushi and steak counters, Italian kitchens and deep wine lists, and the Food & Wine Classic brings chefs to town each June. The gap is at the cheaper end: there is little casual middle ground, and many kitchens close in the quiet spring and autumn weeks.

Winter Park feeds you honestly rather than memorably. Expect green chile, burgers, barbecue and breakfast burritos before first chair, with craft breweries and a few dinner rooms serving elk and trout. It is cheerful fuel for a day outdoors, not a reason to book.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but Aspen has more to see. Its silver-boom past survives in red-brick Victorian blocks around the Wheeler Opera House and in the painted miners' cottages of the West End. Add the timber-latticed Aspen Art Museum, Herbert Bayer's modernist Aspen Institute campus and the ghost town of Ashcroft, and you have a pleasant afternoon.

Winter Park's heritage comes down to the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a small homesteading museum in Fraser. The town grew up around a ski area, and for a proper museum day you drive to Denver.

Aspen has a real, if seasonal, night out. After the slopeside decks empty, downtown lounges and hotel bars fill with a well-dressed crowd, and over Christmas, New Year and the X Games a few small clubs stay busy late. Summer is softer, with drinks on patios.

Winter Park's evening is après-ski and little more: loud base-village bars as the lifts close, then pubs and brewery taprooms along the main road. The crowd is families and skiers who want an early start, so the town is asleep well before midnight.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, and Aspen has the wider range. It has four separate ski mountains, from gentle Buttermilk to the steep expert terrain of Highlands and the sheer size of Snowmass. In summer it adds the Maroon Bells, wilderness routes to summits above 4,000m, the drive over Independence Pass and fly-fishing on the Roaring Fork.

Winter Park answers with two linked mountains, the cruisers on one side and Mary Jane's bumps and trees on the other, and a season that often lasts well into spring. Its summer strength is mountain biking, with a famous lift-served bike park and long singletrack around Fraser. The moose and high tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park are an hour north.

Winter Park has the better outings because Denver is behind it. Over Berthoud Pass, Georgetown and Idaho Springs offer brick mining-era main streets and a narrow-gauge railway loop. Grand Lake has its boardwalk, and when the pass is clear Denver's museums and Boulder are within a day's reach.

From Aspen the choices are smaller towns down the valley: Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, and the quarry village of Marble with Redstone on the way. Victorian Leadville is within reach only while Independence Pass is open in summer, and the winter closure cuts the list noticeably.

Winter Park is the easier family base. It has a large children's ski school and learning slopes right at the base, and the village is small enough to walk from the condo to the lifts. Tubing, sleigh rides and skating fill winter afternoons, and an alpine slide and mini golf fill the summer ones.

Aspen does the skiing part well, with gentle terrain and good kids' programmes at Buttermilk and Snowmass, plus lift-served coasters and ropes courses in summer. The town around them, though, is aimed at well-off adults. Both sit high enough for altitude to tire small children at first, and Winter Park is the higher of the two.

Aspen is much easier to manage without a car. The flat downtown grid is walkable in minutes, the gondola leaves from its edge, and free buses run to all four mountains. Shuttles reach the Maroon Bells and Glenwood Springs, and the airport is just outside town.

In Winter Park the free shuttle and walkable base village cover a ski week. However, lodgings are spread along the highway, the main street is a road rather than a place to stroll, and trailheads and the national park need a car. Both towns sit behind mountain passes that winter storms can close.

Aspen is a shopping town in a way Winter Park never tries to be. Its pedestrian malls hold international luxury labels, high-end ski wear, jewellers, Western leather and fur, and commercial art galleries, and window-shopping is part of an evening there. Budget and craft browsers will find little.

Winter Park's shops are practical: rental and tuning shops, bike shops and outdoor clothing for the gear you forgot. Anything beyond that means Denver.

Neither is a cheap trip, but Winter Park costs noticeably less. Its lift tickets and slopeside rooms still carry Colorado resort prices, but condos with kitchens in Fraser bring the bill down. Summer is easier still, when the trails are free and lodging rates drop.

Aspen is among the most expensive places to vacation anywhere, and that covers lodging, lessons, meals and drinks alike. Staying down the valley in Glenwood Springs or Carbondale and taking the valley bus in helps, but only so far.

Aspen has a serious summer programme. The Aspen Music Festival brings leading soloists, orchestras and opera to the Benedict Music Tent for about eight weeks, and people picnic on the lawn outside to listen for free. The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, jazz festivals and the Victorian Wheeler Opera House add more.

Winter Park offers free summer concerts in its town park, pleasant evenings on the grass, and in winter a band in an après-ski bar. With no theatre or concert hall, a real performance means the drive to Denver.

Both are equally restful, and the rest comes in different forms. Aspen leans on its resort-hotel spas, yoga in the parks and riverside paths. The big mineral pools and cave vapour baths of Glenwood Springs are an hour away, and Conundrum Hot Springs rewards a long hike.

Winter Park's version is simpler: a hot tub at your condo after a day outside, and the terraced pools of Hot Sulphur Springs above the Colorado River about half an hour west. Both towns are calmest outside peak ski weeks.