Beaver Creek or Whitefish?

Swimming hardly features in Beaver Creek. Mostly it means a heated hotel pool, and the small sandy patch at Nottingham Lake down in Avon is fed by cold snowmelt.

Whitefish has real lakes to swim in. City Beach on Whitefish Lake is at the edge of town, with a dock and paddleboards, and the very clear water of Flathead Lake is forty minutes south. On calm days from mid-July to late August the surface reaches around 20°C. It is a summer extra rather than a reason to go, but it is a real one.

Beaver Creek gives you more ambitious meals. Expect elk, Colorado lamb and trout with long wine lists, and dinners at on-mountain lodges reached by chairlift or snowcat sleigh. When the resort menus start to look alike, there are taquerias and brewpubs in Avon and the wider choice in Vail.

Whitefish has more local character but less range. You get bison burgers, wood-fired pizza and huckleberries in pies, milkshakes and cocktails through late summer. Central Avenue holds only a handful of places, though, so a week means going back to the same tables.

Neither town is a place for sightseeing, and you can see what each has in an hour. Beaver Creek is a planned alpine village from around 1980, with tidy stone and timber buildings and outdoor art on the plaza. Whitefish has a little genuine history: it is an old railway town, and its timber Great Northern depot holds a small museum of the railway and logging days. If you want more of the past, Beaver Creek at least has the old mining towns of Colorado within a drive.

Whitefish has the livelier evenings. Its saloons and brewery taprooms on Central Avenue have wooden bars and pool tables, ranchers drinking beside ski bums, and summer patios that stay full, although there are no clubs and nights end fairly early.

Beaver Creek is built to be calm. Après-ski by the fire pits on the plaza and a few hotel lounges are about all there is after dinner, and anyone wanting a night out drives to Vail.

Both are outstanding outdoor bases, but each is built around a different season. Beaver Creek is above all a ski mountain, with uncrowded groomed runs and steep glades, links to Bachelor Gulch, Arrowhead and Vail, and dependable snow from December to April. In summer it offers hiking in the Holy Cross Wilderness, gold-medal fly-fishing and rafting.

Whitefish looks to Glacier National Park. There you find the Highline Trail, Grinnell Glacier, Lake McDonald and the Going-to-the-Sun Road, with grizzlies and mountain goats along the way. Big Mountain is a good ski area, but it is the second attraction. The catch is the short season, as the high country is reliably open only from July to September.

Beaver Creek has more towns worth a day out. Vail is twenty minutes away, Leadville is a Victorian silver-mining town over Tennessee Pass, and Breckenridge and Glenwood Springs are each about an hour's drive. They feel similar, but there are enough of them to fill a rest day or two.

From Whitefish the outings are fewer and smaller. You can visit the Conrad Mansion in Kalispell, the galleries of Bigfork, the cherry orchards along Flathead Lake, or the mission church at St Ignatius two hours south. Most days out from Whitefish head into the park instead.

Beaver Creek makes the logistics of a family vacation unusually smooth. It has a large ski school, gentle learning areas, an ice rink, escalators up from the car parks, warm cookies when the lifts close, and a plaza where older children can roam. Summer adds ropes courses, climbing and mini golf on the hilltop. The thin air can tire small children at first.

Whitefish works well for families who already love being outdoors. It has a zip line and an alpine slide on the mountain, calm water at City Beach and the flat Trail of the Cedars in Glacier. Children who don't enjoy hiking or paddling run out of things to do sooner, and the drives into the park are long.

Once you arrive in Beaver Creek, you can manage without a car. The village core is pedestrian, many lodgings are ski-in ski-out, free shuttles run down to Avon and valley buses go to Vail. Eagle airport is half an hour away, although Denver is a two-hour drive over passes that storms can close.

In Whitefish, downtown is walkable and the long-distance train stops right at the depot. Beyond the winter ski shuttle, though, you need a car for Glacier, Flathead Lake and the trailheads.

Both offer an afternoon's browsing rather than a reason to visit, and the difference is in tone. Around Beaver Creek's plaza you find luxury outerwear, technical ski gear, jewellery and galleries of bronze sculpture. Whitefish's Central Avenue has a more down-to-earth mix of outfitters, boot shops, wildlife art, huckleberry jam and Montana-made goods. For everyday needs, you drive down to Avon and Edwards from one and to Kalispell from the other.

Both are expensive, but Beaver Creek is in another class, with luxury slopeside hotels, costly lift passes and ski school, and mountain dining priced to match. Staying down the valley or coming in summer helps only a little.

Whitefish gives you more ways to bring the cost down. Rooms in Kalispell or Columbia Falls are cheaper, late spring and autumn are easier on the wallet, and once you are inside Glacier the park itself is good value. You will still need to budget for a hire car.

Beaver Creek has the stronger calendar. The Vilar Performing Arts Center in the village hosts concerts, dance and family shows through winter and summer. In summer, Bravo! Vail brings leading orchestras to the amphitheatre in Vail, alongside the Vail Dance Festival.

Whitefish offers community theatre, a professional summer company and the valley symphony in Kalispell. On summer evenings it relies more on free outdoor concerts and bands in the bars.

For a slow, pampered few days, Beaver Creek is the better choice. It has some of the largest resort spas in the Rockies, with outdoor hot tubs in the snow, a car-free village that goes quiet at night, and the historic mineral pools of Glenwood Springs about an hour away.

Whitefish relaxes you mainly through its setting: early mornings by the lake and long days outdoors. It also has lodge spas and yoga studios in town, but the nearest hot springs are a couple of hours' drive away.