Copper Mountain or Park City?

You won't swim at either place except in a pool. The difference is in what summer water there is. Copper Mountain's Summit County reservoirs are fed by snowmelt and stay too cold for bathing, so a swim means a heated lodge pool. Park City has Jordanelle Reservoir a short drive away, with sandy swimming areas, paddleboarding and picnic lawns in high summer, although the water is cool and the season is short.

Park City eats noticeably better. Historic Main Street and the resort bases have a cluster of polished restaurants cooking modern mountain food with elk, bison, trout and seasonal produce. Après-ski with local craft beer and whiskey is a pleasure of its own, and Salt Lake City is close for more variety.

At Copper Mountain, meals are fuel: burgers and chilli at the mid-mountain lodges, a few pizza, Mexican and pub-style places in the village, and plenty of condo cooking. For a memorable dinner you drive to Frisco or Breckenridge.

Neither is a sightseeing trip, but Park City has a past you can walk through. It is itself an old silver-mining town, with restored wooden storefronts climbing Main Street and mine headframes on the slopes above. The Park City Museum, with its basement jail cells, and the Olympic museums at the 2002 Games park can fill an afternoon.

Copper Mountain was built as a ski village, and its condos and lodges hold no history. The region's Victorian main streets and old mine works are real, but you have to drive to Breckenridge or Leadville to see them.

Park City gives you somewhere to go after dinner. Main Street's saloons, cocktail bars and a few rooms with DJs or bands get loud on winter weekends. It is still a small scene that ends well before the small hours.

At Copper Mountain, the evening peaks at the lift-base bars with skiers still in their boots, plus some music on the plaza on busy weekends. By late evening the village has turned in. A later night means the half-hour drive to Breckenridge.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, but the mountains feel different. Copper Mountain is high and raw. Its treeless bowls in the Tenmile Range rise above 3,600m, and a week can take in several Summit County ski areas and Vail. In summer the Colorado Trail and the Vail Pass path start at the door, and fourteen-thousand-foot peaks such as Mount Elbert are within an hour.

Park City sits lower, at about 2,100m, with two big ski areas rising straight out of town and Utah's light, dry powder. Alta and Snowbird are within an hour over the ridge. Its summer is gentler and more varied: singletrack leaving from the streets, lift-served biking, fly fishing on the Provo and Weber rivers, and aspen gold in autumn.

Copper Mountain has the better outings. Breckenridge's long Victorian main street and Leadville's weathered silver-boom district are each about half an hour away, Vail is over the pass, and Georgetown has its narrow-gauge railway on the road to Denver. Weekend ski traffic on I-70 can make the trip into the city slow.

From Park City, the obvious outing is Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the State Capitol. You can add the Heber Valley steam railway, Swiss-style Midway, Ogden's railroad-era street and the Sundance canyon road. Beyond those, most of what lies within reach is scenery rather than towns.

Both make a sound ski week with children, and Park City has a slight edge. Its free buses save hauling car seats to the slopes, and at its lower altitude young children feel the thin air less. The Olympic Park has an alpine coaster, ziplines and freestyle skiers flipping into a splash pool, and Salt Lake City's zoo and aquarium are within an hour.

Copper Mountain's strength is its car-free core and a ski school at the centre of resort life. Off the slopes there are snow tubing and a trampoline and foam-pit centre for bad-weather days. At nearly 3,000m, though, headaches and poor sleep are common at first, and there is little for children beyond the resort.

Park City is easier to reach and to get around. Free buses link Old Town, both ski bases and Kimball Junction, and the airport is about 40 minutes away by shuttle.

Copper Mountain works well once you are there, with walkways, lifts and a free shuttle inside the resort and county buses to Frisco. Getting there is the problem: Denver airport is about two hours away, and I-70 can be snowbound and jammed in winter, so most visitors end up relying on a car.

Park City is the only one of the two where browsing is part of the day. Main Street has art galleries, Western-wear and cowboy-boot shops, jewellers and ski fashion, and Kimball Junction has outlets. At Copper Mountain, the shops sell rentals, gear, sunglasses and resort-branded clothing, so anything more means driving to the Silverthorne outlets or Breckenridge's boutiques.

Both are costly in ski season, but Copper Mountain is the slightly gentler of the two. Condos with kitchens are common, and staying in Frisco or Silverthorne costs less than staying slope-side.

Park City's lodging, lift access, ski school and Main Street dinners sit at the top of the North American market, and the Christmas and New Year weeks are steeper still. Visitors watching their spending often sleep in Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley and drive up. In both places, summer and autumn are cheaper.

Park City has a real programme. The Egyptian Theatre, a 1920s playhouse on Main Street, puts on plays, comedy and small concerts all year, the Eccles Center hosts touring shows, and in summer the Utah Symphony plays outdoors at Deer Valley.

Copper Mountain has summer bands on the village plaza and acoustic sets at après-ski, but no stage of its own. For a concert or a play, you drive to Breckenridge's summer classical season or its small theatre.

Park City is the place to unwind properly. The grand lodges at Deer Valley and the Canyons base run large spas with massages aimed at tired legs. Twenty-five minutes away in Midway, you can swim in the Homestead Crater's spring at about 35°C inside its limestone dome.

At Copper Mountain, relaxing mostly means an outdoor hot tub facing the slopes, plus the pools and massages at the athletic club. The nearest hot springs are far across the mountains, and the higher altitude makes the first nights' sleep harder.