Copper Mountain or Steamboat Springs?

Neither is a place to swim, so the difference is in what you do instead. At Copper Mountain, the nearby reservoirs are cold snowmelt and used for boating, so getting into the water means a heated lodge pool or a hot tub. Steamboat Springs gives you a little more: tubing the Yampa River right through town, and a short July and August window for a chilly dip at Steamboat Lake or Stagecoach.

Copper Mountain feeds people and little more. You get burgers and chilli in the mid-mountain lodges, pizza, Mexican and pub food in the village, and a condo kitchen for everything else. For a more interesting dinner, you drive to Frisco or Breckenridge.

Steamboat Springs is no food destination either, but it has a downtown to eat in. Lincoln Avenue has steakhouses cooking Colorado beef and lamb, a few local breweries and a couple of more ambitious kitchens. The valley's ranching background gives the menus a hearty western character that Copper's resort cooking lacks.

Copper Mountain has almost nothing to visit. It is a purpose-built resort, and the mining-era history of the area lives in the neighbouring towns.

Steamboat Springs has a small but real story of its own. It shows in the western storefronts on Lincoln Avenue, the homesteader history at the Tread of Pioneers Museum in its Victorian house, and Howelsen Hill, one of North America's oldest ski areas, in the middle of town. It fills an hour or two, not a day, but Copper has nothing like it.

At Copper Mountain, going out means après-ski. The bars at the foot of the lifts fill up as the lifts close, and on busy weekends there is some music on the plaza, but the village is quiet by late evening and almost silent out of season.

Steamboat Springs keeps going for longer. After the gondola-base bars, the crowd moves downtown to saloons and brewpubs on Lincoln Avenue, and some stay busy late in ski season. Neither town has clubs.

Both are excellent mountain destinations, and they differ in character. Copper Mountain is the higher and more alpine of the two. Its treeless bowls in the Tenmile Range rise above 3,600m, and other major ski areas are a short drive away. In summer, the Colorado Trail, the paved path over Vail Pass and the fourteeners near Leadville make it a serious base for hikers and riders, though the thin air takes some getting used to.

Steamboat Springs is known for its light, dry Champagne Powder and its tree skiing through aspen glades. You can also ski cross-country and at night at Howelsen Hill, or ride a snowmobile on Rabbit Ears Pass. Its summer is greener and more about water and wildlife, with fly fishing on the Yampa, alpine lakes in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness, gold aspens in autumn, and elk and moose.

This is where Copper Mountain pulls well ahead. Within about half an hour you can reach Breckenridge's Victorian main street, Leadville's silver-boom historic district, Vail's Alpine-style village and lakeside Frisco. Further towards Denver are Georgetown and its narrow-gauge railway, and the city itself, with its museums. It is easy to fill a rest day.

Steamboat Springs is too remote for that. The nearby towns are small ranching places worth a coffee stop, and Vail or Denver means a long day of mountain driving, so most outings from Steamboat head into the hills, not to another town.

Both work well for families who love the outdoors, and they suit them in different ways. Copper Mountain is a self-contained resort. It has a car-free core, a large children's ski school, snow tubing, a mountain coaster and an indoor action-sports centre with trampolines. Its village sits at nearly 3,000m, though, so the altitude is harder on small children.

Steamboat Springs has a town around it, with restaurants used to children, gentle first turns at Howelsen Hill and warm pools, slides and a climbing wall at Old Town Hot Springs. In summer there is tubing on the Yampa and the rodeo. Neither has zoos or theme parks to fall back on.

Getting around is about equally easy in both. Copper Mountain is the more compact. Walkways, lifts and a free shuttle link its villages, and free county buses run to Frisco, Breckenridge and Keystone. The Denver airport is about two hours away, but the drive is on I-70, which can be slow in snow and weekend traffic.

Steamboat Springs is split between flat, walkable downtown and the ski base, with a town bus between them. Most visitors fly into the small airport at Hayden. You will want a car for the hot springs, waterfalls and passes.

At Copper Mountain, shopping means rental shops, outdoor gear and branded clothing in the village. For anything more, you drive to the Silverthorne outlets or the boutiques of Breckenridge.

Steamboat Springs has a pleasant hour of shopping along Lincoln Avenue. You will find western-wear stores selling boots, hats and saddle-blanket goods, among them a family outfitter that has been there for more than a century, plus a few galleries. It is still not a reason to come.

Neither is cheap. Ski passes, slopeside lodging, rental and resort meals cost about the same in both, and both get noticeably gentler in summer. At Copper Mountain, you can save by staying in Frisco or Silverthorne and riding the free county buses in. It also costs a little less than its grander neighbours.

Steamboat Springs is most expensive around Christmas, New Year and the spring school breaks. Spring and late autumn are cheaper, but some places close then. In both, a condo with a kitchen saves the most money.

Copper Mountain offers little beyond bands on the village plaza on summer concert weekends and acoustic sets at après-ski. For classical music or theatre, you drive to Breckenridge.

Steamboat Springs has a proper summer programme. The Strings Music Festival has run for decades in its pavilion at the edge of town, mixing chamber music, jazz and bluegrass, and Perry-Mansfield, founded in 1913, stages student theatre and dance in Strawberry Park. Outside summer, both towns are quiet.

This is Steamboat Springs' strongest advantage. The town is named after a chugging spring, mineral water rises all around it, and the pools of Old Town Hot Springs are used all year. About 11km up a mountain road, the rock-lined pools of Strawberry Park sit in a wooded creek valley, and an evening soak there in falling snow is hard to beat.

At Copper Mountain, unwinding means a condo hot tub facing the slopes, or the pools and massages at the athletic club. The nearest hot springs are a long drive away, and at that altitude the first few nights' sleep can be poor.