Deer Valley or Santa Fe?

Neither place is for a beach trip. From Deer Valley, Jordanelle Reservoir is a short drive below the resort and has a sandy state-park shore, handy on a hot July afternoon. Santa Fe's swimming means an hour's drive to Abiquiu Lake or a float on the Rio Grande, which is more an excursion than a swim, so in both places the hotel pool does most of the work.

Santa Fe has what Deer Valley lacks: a cuisine of its own. Red and green chile, blue corn, posole and carne adovada are served in old adobe dining rooms around the Plaza. Add the smell of roasting chile in autumn and the long-running Railyard farmers' market, and eating becomes part of the reason to go.

Deer Valley and Park City eat well, but in a generic way: lodge food on the mountain, the ritual turkey chili at the base, and steakhouses, sushi and bistros along Main Street. That suits skiers who want familiar upscale choices, though neither town has much street food.

This is where the two differ most. Santa Fe was founded in 1610 and keeps a low adobe townscape around its Plaza, with the Palace of the Governors, the Cathedral Basilica and the spiral staircase of the Loretto Chapel. Add the folk art and Native American collections on Museum Hill and the O'Keeffe Museum, and two or three days are well spent.

Deer Valley offers an afternoon of sightseeing: Park City's restored silver-mining Main Street, the Park City Museum in the old city hall and the ski-jump towers left from the 2002 Games. It makes a pleasant backdrop to a ski trip, not a destination.

Both towns go to bed early, and neither has a club scene worth the name. The difference is the mood. Park City's Main Street saloons and après-ski bars fill up after a day on the slopes in ski season, especially at weekends.

Santa Fe's evenings revolve around a long dinner and then a margarita or mezcal on a rooftop as the sun sets over the Jemez Mountains. Visitors who want a bigger night drive to Albuquerque, while most Deer Valley guests are saving themselves for first chair.

Both are true mountain bases, but Deer Valley is the stronger one. Its groomed slopes, Park City Mountain next door and the powder of Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude about an hour away put it in a different league from Santa Fe's single ski area. In summer its runs become hundreds of kilometres of lift-served biking and hiking trails.

Santa Fe's appeal is variety rather than scale. You get high country of pine and aspen in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Pecos Wilderness, then desert mesas, the elk meadows of Valles Caldera, rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge and the red cliffs around Abiquiu.

Santa Fe wins clearly here. The High Road through Chimayo and Truchas to Taos Pueblo, the cliff dwellings at Bandelier, Los Alamos, Pecos and O'Keeffe's Ghost Ranch could fill a week, though almost all of it needs a car.

From Deer Valley the main outing is Salt Lake City, about forty minutes away, for Temple Square and the State Capitol. Midway, the Heber Valley steam railway and Sundance are gentler extras. The grand sights within reach are landscapes rather than towns.

For children who ski, Deer Valley is the easier choice. It has well-run ski schools, wide beginner runs with no snowboarders and ski-to-the-door lodging, and the Olympic Park adds tubing, an alpine coaster and ziplines. The catch is the cost of lessons and lift access.

Santa Fe is safe and relaxed but built around galleries and long dinners. Its highlights for children are the Children's Museum, the toys and miniatures of the folk art museum and the ladders at Bandelier, so it suits older children who like hiking and history. In both towns the altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

Deer Valley is easier without a car. Fare-free buses link its base areas with Main Street, Park City Mountain and Kimball Junction, and much of the lodging sits on the slopes. Leaving the area still means driving, and the steep hillsides make walking between lodges impractical.

Santa Fe's historic centre is the better place to wander, with the Plaza, Canyon Road and the Railyard all within about twenty minutes of each other on foot. Beyond that, buses are infrequent. Apart from the Rail Runner to Albuquerque, reaching Museum Hill, trailheads and pueblos generally calls for a hire car.

Santa Fe is a real shopping destination if you want art and craft. You can buy silver and turquoise directly from Native American artists under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, browse the galleries of Canyon Road and the Railyard, and find Pueblo pottery and rugs. In summer come the Indian, Spanish and folk art markets.

Deer Valley's shopping is Park City's Main Street, with galleries, western wear and boutiques, plus the outlet centre at Kimball Junction. Its one real strength is ski and outdoor gear.

Neither place is cheap, but Deer Valley is in a different bracket. Slopeside lodging is luxury, lift access is priced at the top of the North American market, and ski school and rental come on top. Summer is gentler on the budget, and staying in the Heber Valley or Salt Lake City is the usual way to save.

Santa Fe costs more than its size would suggest, especially around the Plaza in summer and at Christmas. Still, lodging along Cerrillos Road is cheaper, and hiking, the Plaza and gallery browsing are free. The hire car is the main extra cost.

Santa Fe has an event worth planning a trip around: the summer opera in its open-sided hilltop theatre, known for new and rarely staged works. A chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition add to it. Deer Valley's equivalent is the Utah Symphony's outdoor summer festival at Snow Park, a picnic-on-the-lawn affair rather than a reason to travel.

Outside summer, both shrink to a small-town calendar. The Lensic in Santa Fe and the 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Park City's Main Street carry touring shows and concerts.

Both suit a slower pace, in different styles. Deer Valley's version is slopeside luxury: polished hotel spas, massages for tired legs and hot tubs on snowy terraces. Half an hour away is the Homestead Crater, with a warm spring pool inside a limestone dome.

Santa Fe offers more range, from Japanese-style outdoor tubs in the pines above town to the mineral pools at Ojo Caliente, plus plenty of yoga studios and healers. Its adobe courtyards and early evenings also help you unwind. Neither town has a public bathing culture.