Copper Mountain or Flagstaff?

Neither is a place to swim, as both sit high in the mountains and far from any coast. At Copper Mountain the snowmelt reservoirs of Summit County are too cold for bathing, so a summer swim means a heated lodge pool or a hot tub.

Flagstaff at least has natural swimming within a drive, in the creek pools of Oak Creek Canyon on the road to Sedona, Slide Rock among them. The water is cold, the rocks are slippery and the pools fill up on summer weekends. Still, it is outdoor swimming of a kind Copper does not have.

Copper Mountain keeps people fed but offers little to explore. There are burgers and chilli at the mountain lodges and a few pizza, Mexican and pub places in the village, and many visitors cook in their condos. For a better evening meal you drive to Frisco or Breckenridge.

Flagstaff is not a food destination either, but as a working university town it has more choice. Its craft breweries around downtown and the Southside are the highlight, with patios full on summer evenings. Navajo tacos, frybread and green chile add a regional flavour that a ski village has nothing to match.

The gap is wide here. Copper Mountain is a purpose-built village of condos and lifts with nothing to visit. The area's mining history lives in Breckenridge and Leadville, not at the resort.

Flagstaff's list of sights is short but genuine. Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill is where Pluto was found in 1930, the Museum of Northern Arizona holds Hopi, Navajo and Zuni collections, and there are the Riordan Mansion and a brick downtown on Route 66. Together they fill a day or two, which is a day or two more than Copper can offer.

Evenings at Copper Mountain mean après-ski. The bars at the base of the lifts are full on winter afternoons and there is some music on the plaza at weekends, but most people are back in their condos by late evening. Once the snow season ends there is very little at all.

Flagstaff goes out all year. Taprooms, cocktail bars and old Route 66 saloons are a few minutes' walk apart downtown and on the Southside, and students liven up weekends in term time. Neither town has clubs, but in Flagstaff a night out can take in several places rather than one bar by the lifts.

Both are outstanding mountain bases, and the difference is in the kind of mountains. Copper Mountain is high alpine country: its own big ski area under the Tenmile Range, more Summit County resorts and Vail nearby, and in summer the Colorado Trail, the paved path over Vail Pass and fourteeners such as Mount Elbert.

Flagstaff's landscape is wider and more varied. Ponderosa forest, the volcanic San Francisco Peaks and the lava flows of Sunset Crater are on the doorstep. Sedona's red rock and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon are an easy drive away, and the night skies are among the darkest of any town. There is skiing, but it is a sideline rather than the main event.

Both have a good spread of drives rather than one star excursion, but the outings differ in character. From Copper they lead to Colorado mining towns: Breckenridge's Victorian main street, the silver-boom town of Leadville, and Georgetown with its narrow-gauge railway. Vail is over the pass, and Denver offers a real city when the I-70 traffic allows.

From Flagstaff the history goes back further and the landscape is desert. There are Sinagua ruins at Walnut Canyon and Wupatki, cliff dwellings in the Verde Valley, the hillside town of Jerome, the historic railway from Williams to the Grand Canyon, and the Hopi mesas further east. The drives are longer, but the scenery changes more along the way.

Families do about equally well, in different ways. Copper Mountain is the more organised option. It has a car-free village core, a children's ski school at the centre of resort life, tubing, a mountain coaster and an indoor trampoline centre, but little for children beyond the resort.

Flagstaff suits curious children more than very active ones, with telescope evenings at the observatory, dinosaurs at the museum, rope courses in summer and snow play in winter. A wildlife park and the Grand Canyon train are further out. Altitude is a concern in both places, more so at Copper, which sits nearly 900m higher. In Flagstaff the cost is longer drives between outings.

Once you arrive, Copper Mountain is the easier place to manage without a car. Walkways, lifts and a free shuttle link its villages, and free county buses run to Frisco, Breckenridge and Keystone. Getting there is the hard part: Denver airport is about two hours away by road, there is no train, and I-70 can slow to a crawl in winter.

Flagstaff has a walkable downtown, an urban trail network for cycling, local buses and a long-distance train station. But nearly everything visitors come for, from the peaks to Sedona and the Grand Canyon, is beyond the reach of public transport, so a car is needed far more of the time.

Copper Mountain's shops exist to serve the slopes: ski and snowboard rental, outdoor kit, sunglasses and clothing with the resort's name on it. Anyone after more than that drives to the Silverthorne outlets or the main street of Breckenridge.

Flagstaff is not a shopping town either, but it has something Copper cannot offer, which is work made by the Navajo and Hopi communities whose lands lie a short drive away. A rug, a kachina carving or a piece of turquoise jewellery from a downtown gallery or a trading post outside town is a keepsake that belongs to the place, which a resort fleece never is. Beyond that, the outdoor shops, bookshops and Route 66 souvenirs make a pleasant hour downtown rather than a reason to come.

Copper Mountain is clearly the more expensive trip, especially in winter, when lift access, slope-side lodging and equipment hire add up. A condo kitchen or a bed in Frisco or Silverthorne helps, and summer is gentler on the budget.

Flagstaff is moderately priced by American standards, with chain motels along Route 66 and reasonable brewery meals. Rooms rise on summer weekends, when the town fills with Grand Canyon visitors, and a hire car, fuel and park fees all add to the bill. Even so, a stay works out cheaper here than in Sedona or at Copper.

There is hardly a stage at Copper Mountain. Bands play on the plaza on summer concert weekends and acoustic sets turn up at après-ski, but for a real programme you go to Breckenridge for its summer classical season and small theatre.

Flagstaff has a modest calendar of its own. The Flagstaff Symphony Orchestra and the university music school play in the campus concert hall, touring bands appear at the restored Orpheum Theater downtown, community theatre runs through the year and there are summer concerts in the pines. Nobody plans a trip around it, but it gives a free evening somewhere to go.

Neither has a spa culture, and the restful side of both comes from mountain quiet and clean air. At Copper that means an outdoor hot tub facing the slopes, plus the athletic club's pools and massages, while the nearest hot springs are a long drive away.

Flagstaff has a few day spas, but it relies more on cool, pine-scented evenings and bright stars. Its real advantage is Sedona, an hour away, whose resort spas and yoga studios go far beyond anything near Copper. In both places the altitude can disturb sleep for the first nights, more so at Copper.