Beaver Creek or Boulder?

Neither is a place to swim, and they are about equally weak on water. The difference is in what replaces a beach. Beaver Creek has a little sandy patch at Nottingham Lake in Avon, with cold snowmelt water, so in practice swimming means a heated hotel pool looking out at the peaks. Boulder adds a swim area at its reservoir and the local summer habit of floating down Boulder Creek on an inner tube, which feels more like fun than a dip.

Beaver Creek cooks for its resort guests. Polished restaurants serve elk, Colorado lamb and trout with long wine lists, and dinner can mean a chairlift or snowcat sleigh ride up to a mountain lodge. The kitchens are good, but the menus resemble one another, and the everyday taquerias, diners and brewpubs are down the valley in Avon and Edwards.

Boulder eats more casually and with an eye on health: seasonal Front Range produce, plenty of vegetarian cooking, good bakeries and coffee roasters, and lunch in the carved Tajik pavilion of the Dushanbe Teahouse. Fine dining runs to only a handful of rooms, and neither place has a cuisine of its own, but Denver is close for more range.

Boulder has more to see, though it is still modest. The 1898 Chautauqua with its wooden cottages under the Flatirons, the red-roofed sandstone campus, I.M. Pei's atmospheric research laboratory on the mesa and a few small museums fill a pleasant day.

Beaver Creek was built as a ski resort around 1980. Its stone and timber village with outdoor art takes about an hour to walk round, and real history means driving to the mining towns.

Boulder offers a proper night out, with brewery taprooms and cocktail bars around Pearl Street and loud student bars on University Hill during term. Even so it ends early, and Denver is the place for clubs.

Beaver Creek's evening is après-ski by a fire pit on the plaza, dinner and then bed, in a village designed to stay quiet. Anyone wanting more drives to Vail.

Both are first-rate outdoor bases, and the difference lies in what you do there. Beaver Creek is a ski mountain first, with long cruisers and steep glades. In summer the lifts carry hikers and bikers up into the Gore Range and Holy Cross Wilderness, and the Eagle and Colorado Rivers offer fly-fishing and rafting.

Boulder's outdoors starts at the end of the street. More than 200km of trails run up the Flatirons, Eldorado Canyon is a climbing wall of national standing, and the canyon roads are famous for cycling. Rocky Mountain National Park, with tundra and elk, is about an hour away, while skiing is a smaller affair.

Boulder has the better choice of outings, mostly because Denver, with its art museum, state capitol and Union Station, is about 40 minutes away by express bus. Golden, Fort Collins, Estes Park and the silver towns of Georgetown and Idaho Springs add variety, though they need a car.

From Beaver Creek, the trips are to other mountain towns: Vail's pedestrian village, Victorian Leadville over Tennessee Pass, gold-rush Breckenridge and the spa town of Glenwood Springs. They are pleasant but similar to one another.

Both work well for children, in different ways. Beaver Creek is built around the family ski week, with a large ski school, gentle learning terrain, an ice rink and a car-free plaza where older children can roam. In summer it has ropes courses and mini golf on the hilltop.

Boulder suits outdoorsy children who also like a town: the creek path, tubing, street performers on Pearl Street and a planetarium for a rainy hour. At 1,655m it is also far easier on small lungs than Beaver Creek's 2,500m. For a zoo or aquarium, both send you to Denver.

Boulder is the easier base without a car. The centre, campus and Chautauqua are within walking distance, an excellent network of off-street bike paths follows the creeks, and an express bus links the town to Denver and its airport. Trailheads beyond the town limits still call for a hire car.

Beaver Creek is effortless inside the resort, with escalators, ski-in ski-out lodging and free shuttles. Beyond it you need a car, and the drive from Denver takes about two hours over passes that winter storms can close.

Boulder gives you more to browse. The brick-paved Pearl Street Mall has independent bookshops, toy shops and boutiques, and the climbing, running and cycling gear shops are unusually good for a town this size.

Beaver Creek's shopping is a small upmarket cluster on the plaza, with technical ski wear, western boots, jewellery and galleries selling bronzes. It is fine for a rest-day wander but narrow and costly.

Neither is cheap, but Beaver Creek is in a class of its own for cost. Luxury slopeside lodging, lift tickets, rental, ski school and on-mountain meals add up fast, and staying in Avon or coming in summer only softens the bill.

Boulder's hotels and restaurant meals are expensive too, yet its main attraction, the trails, is close to free. Staying in Denver and riding the bus in is a workable way to save.

Boulder has more live music through the year. Small downtown rooms book rock, bluegrass and roots acts most nights. In summer the Colorado Music Festival fills the wooden 1898 Chautauqua Auditorium and Shakespeare is staged outdoors on campus, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre is about 45 minutes away.

Beaver Creek's offer is the Vilar Performing Arts Center in the village, plus Bravo! Vail's orchestras and the Vail Dance Festival in summer. Outside those weeks it is quiet.

In Beaver Creek, relaxing means heat and water. The large resort spas have steam rooms and hot tubs steaming in the snow, and the historic mineral pools of Glenwood Springs are about an hour west for a full day of soaking.

In Boulder, relaxing is a way of life rather than a spa visit. There are yoga and meditation studios on every corner, a contemplative university tradition and slow, sunny mornings. For a soak there is only the modest spring-fed pool at Eldorado Springs, unless you drive to Idaho Springs.