Beaver Creek or Colorado Springs?

Neither place has anywhere real to swim. Beaver Creek's options are the small sandy area at Nottingham Lake in Avon, cold with snowmelt, and heated outdoor hotel pools with a mountain view. Colorado Springs has public pools and a few reservoirs, and visitors who want time on the water usually go rafting on the Arkansas River instead.

The two eat about equally well, but in different styles. Beaver Creek is refined resort dining: elk, Colorado lamb and trout, long wine lists and dinners at on-mountain lodges reached by snowcat sleigh. The everyday taquerias and diners are down the valley in Avon and Edwards.

Colorado Springs is casual: craft breweries with food trucks outside, green chile and barbecue, at their best around Tejon Street, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs. The Broadmoor's dining rooms are the formal end. Go to Beaver Creek for a special dinner and to Colorado Springs for a good local beer.

Colorado Springs has more to see, though it is no museum city. The aluminium spires of the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy, the Olympic and Paralympic Museum, the Southwestern collection at the Fine Arts Center and the Gold Rush story in the Pioneers Museum fill a couple of worthwhile days. Manitou Springs adds its Victorian streets.

Beaver Creek was built as a ski resort around 1980 and has no historic core. Its stone-and-timber village takes about an hour to see, and real Rockies history means driving to old mining towns such as Leadville.

Neither is a place for late nights, but Colorado Springs at least has a street for going out. On Tejon Street downtown, sports bars, cocktail bars and a few dance spots fill at weekends with students and young soldiers, and Manitou adds a few relaxed bars. In Beaver Creek the evening is après-ski by a fire pit and then a hotel lounge, most guests turn in soon after dinner, and anything livelier means driving to Vail.

Both are outdoor destinations first, and the difference is one of kind. Beaver Creek is a ski mountain, with groomed cruisers and steep glades rising to about 3,500m. In summer the lifts carry hikers and mountain bikers towards the Gore Range and the Holy Cross Wilderness, and the Eagle River has gold-medal fly-fishing.

Colorado Springs is a foothills town with trails open most of the year. You can climb Pikes Peak on foot, by car or on the cog railway, walk or rock climb among the red sandstone fins of Garden of the Gods, or find waterfalls in North Cheyenne Cañon a few minutes from the suburbs. Hikers and mountain bikers will be happy in either.

Colorado Springs has the wider choice. Manitou Springs is next door, and Denver's major museums are a little over an hour north. The gold-mining towns of Cripple Creek and Victor, and the Royal Gorge Bridge, are each about an hour into the hills.

From Beaver Creek the outings are mostly other mountain towns: Vail, silver-mining Leadville, Breckenridge and the old spa town of Glenwood Springs. They are pleasant but similar to one another, and Denver makes a long day.

Over a whole stay, Colorado Springs has slightly more for children. They can hand-feed the giraffes at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, take the cave tours and the cog railway, and visit the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, though every outing means time in the car.

Beaver Creek is easier for parents of children who ski. It has a large ski school, a car-free plaza where older children can roam, an ice rink and summer ropes courses. When the weather turns, though, there is no zoo or museum to fall back on.

Beaver Creek is far simpler once you have arrived. The village is pedestrian, outdoor escalators climb between its levels, many lodgings are ski-in ski-out, and free shuttles reach the hillside lodges and Avon. The catch is getting there: the road from Denver takes about two hours over passes that winter storms can close.

Colorado Springs spreads along the foothills and its bus network is thin, so a hire car is close to essential. Downtown, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs are each pleasant on foot.

Colorado Springs has more range and less polish. In the old storefronts of Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs you will find rock and gem shops, Western wear, outdoor gear and galleries, with outlets and malls on the highways for practical needs. Beaver Creek's plaza is a short, pricey browse through technical ski wear, leather boots, jewellery and bronze sculpture, and anything everyday is down the valley.

The two sit at opposite ends of the bill. In Beaver Creek nearly every part of a ski week is priced for a wealthy clientele: the beds beside the slopes, the lift pass, hired skis, lessons for the children and dinner in the village all cost a premium, and none of them comes in a cheap version. Sleeping down the valley in Avon or Edwards, buying passes early or coming in summer trims the total, but it never comes down to an ordinary level.

Colorado Springs costs about what a mid-sized American city does. A hire car is the main extra, since few visitors manage without one, and restaurant meals are no bargain once the tip is added. What keeps the daily spend down is that the big draws, Garden of the Gods, the canyon parks and the foothill trails, are free to enter.

Neither place is worth planning a trip around a show, but what they offer differs. Beaver Creek has the intimate Vilar Performing Arts Center in the village and, in summer, the Bravo! Vail orchestras and the Vail Dance Festival twenty minutes away, with little in the rest of the year. Colorado Springs has steadier local fare through the year: the Philharmonic at the Pikes Peak Center, plays and musicals at the Fine Arts Center, and touring bands in summer.

Beaver Creek is the better place to unwind. Its resort spas have steam rooms and outdoor hot tubs in the snow, and the large hot-springs pool at Glenwood Springs, used by bathers since the 1880s, is an hour west.

Colorado Springs has the carbonated mineral fountains and small soaking spa of Manitou Springs, a town founded as a health resort, and the full spa at The Broadmoor. Colorado's well-known hot-spring pools, though, are more than two hours away.