Deer Valley or Portland?

Neither place is a beach destination, but Portland gives you a few more options. In summer you can swim off the sandy river beaches on Sauvie Island or in Sellwood, and Cannon Beach makes a scenic coast day, even if the Pacific is too cold and rough for most swimmers. Deer Valley's swimming is at Jordanelle Reservoir below the resort, a boating lake with a sandy strip that is pleasant only on the hottest afternoons.

Portland is far the better place to eat. Its food cart pods serve Thai, Georgian and barbecue cooked by the owners, neighbourhood restaurants are built on salmon, Dungeness crab and hazelnuts, and the breweries, coffee roasters and Willamette Valley pinot make drinking a pleasure in itself.

Deer Valley eats well but within a narrow range. You get polished lodge food on the mountain, the base-area turkey chili, and steakhouses, sushi and après-ski grills along Park City's Main Street. Below the upscale tier there is little else: no markets, no street food and hardly any café life.

Portland has more to see, and its gardens are its finest sights. The Japanese Garden in Washington Park and the walled Lan Su Chinese Garden in Old Town are worth planning around, with the Portland Art Museum and the view from Pittock Mansion filling two or three days.

Deer Valley offers an afternoon at most. Park City's restored silver-mining Main Street, the boom-and-bust story told in the Park City Museum, and the ski jumps at the Olympic Park are the whole list.

Portland makes a much better night out, though it is a bar city rather than a club city. Every neighbourhood from Alberta to Hawthorne has its own strip of taprooms, dive bars with pinball and careful cocktail bars, and they stay open into the small hours.

In Deer Valley the lodges quieten down to fireside lounges once the lifts close. The real going out is on Park City's Main Street, where the saloons fill up on ski-season weekends. It is a small-town scene under Utah's liquor rules, and most people are in bed early.

Both are excellent bases for the outdoors, with Deer Valley slightly ahead. Deer Valley is a mountain destination first: immaculate pistes, Park City Mountain next door and Alta and Snowbird's light powder about an hour away. In summer, hundreds of kilometres of lift-served bike and hiking trails take over, and the 2,000m altitude takes a day to get used to.

Portland's outdoors start from the city streets. Forest Park's 110km of trails begin in the northwest neighbourhoods, and the waterfall hikes of the Columbia River Gorge are half an hour out. Mount Hood offers skiing, but it is an hour and a half's drive rather than a walk to the lift.

Portland has the better range of outings. The Willamette Valley's pinot wineries around McMinnville and Dundee are under an hour away, and Astoria's Victorian river port, Cannon Beach and Hood River's orchards make good days out. Most of them need a car.

From Deer Valley, the main outing is Salt Lake City, about forty minutes down the canyon, for Temple Square and the Capitol. Closer by are the Swiss-styled village of Midway, the steam railway in the Heber Valley and the small arts village at Sundance. These are pleasant but modest places.

For families the two are fairly level, but they suit different families. Deer Valley is ideal if the children ski. It has strong ski schools, gentle groomed runs with no snowboarders, and tubing and an alpine coaster at the Olympic Park. The drawbacks are the cost, the altitude for little ones and the lack of much else nearby.

Portland suits city families. They can climb through the submarine at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, visit the zoo in Washington Park and ride the old-fashioned rides at Oaks Park, all easy by light rail with a pushchair. The trade-off is that wet winters keep everyone indoors.

Portland is easier to get around. The MAX light rail runs from the airport to downtown, the short blocks make walking pleasant, and the streetcar, bike routes and river bridges connect both banks. The east-side neighbourhoods are spread out and mostly reached by bus.

In Deer Valley, the fare-free buses link the base areas with Main Street and Park City Mountain, so a slopeside guest can leave the car parked. The resort itself sprawls over steep hillsides, though. Salt Lake City and the Cottonwood Canyons realistically mean driving, and in winter that means snow tyres.

Shopping around Deer Valley means Park City's Main Street, with galleries, western boots and hats and upmarket boutiques behind the old mining-town fronts, plus the Kimball Junction outlets at the edge of town. Mountain gear is the one thing it does especially well.

Portland gives a shopper far more to explore. Powell's City of Books fills a whole block in the Pearl District, while Mississippi Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard are lined with vintage clothing, record shops and makers' studios. Oregon also has no sales tax.

This is the widest gap between the two. Deer Valley sits at the top of the world ski market, with luxury lodging, lift access, mountain meals and ski school all priced accordingly. The usual way to save is to sleep in the Heber Valley or Salt Lake City and drive in.

Portland is not cheap, but it is gentler. Some of its best meals come from food carts, transit is inexpensive, and Forest Park and the neighbourhoods cost nothing to enjoy. Car hire for trips out of town is the main extra cost.

Portland always has something on. The Oregon Symphony plays in a restored 1920s movie palace, and the opera, ballet and theatre companies run full seasons. Above all, indie and folk bands play small east-side rooms most nights, and the Crystal Ballroom has its sprung dance floor.

Deer Valley's best moment is summer, when the Utah Symphony's outdoor festival at the Snow Park amphitheatre brings picnics on the grass. Otherwise the 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Main Street hosts plays and small concerts, and winter evenings are mostly about dinner.

Deer Valley is the more restful place. Comfort runs through the whole stay: quiet slopeside lodges, fireplaces, steaming terrace hot tubs and spa massages for tired legs, with the warm pool inside Midway's Homestead Crater half an hour away.

Portland relaxes you in a different way, through garden visits, forest walks and long café mornings. It has a handful of neighbourhood soaking houses with saunas and cold plunges, but its natural hot springs are two hours' drive into the Cascades.