Deer Valley or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither is a swimming destination, and a hotel pool is the realistic plan in both. What separates them is the kind of water. Deer Valley has a sandy state-park shoreline at Jordanelle Reservoir, just below the resort, where a dip on a hot July afternoon is genuinely pleasant. Winter Park's lakes around Grand Lake and Granby are fed by snowmelt and stay cold all summer, so people paddle rather than swim, and the hot springs pools down the valley are the better way to get wet.

Deer Valley eats noticeably better. Beyond the polished lodge dining and the ritual turkey chili at the base, Park City's Main Street holds an unusual spread of steakhouses, sushi bars and modern American bistros for a town its size, with local distilleries and breweries for a drink.

Winter Park feeds a ski week honestly but simply: breakfast burritos before first chair, green chile and burgers at the lodges, pizza and barbecue along the highway, and a few dinner rooms for elk or trout. On busy weekends tables fill early, and there is far less choice once you look past the basics.

Neither is a sightseeing trip, but Deer Valley at least has an afternoon's worth. Park City's wooden storefronts, mine headframes on the slopes and the museum in the old city hall tell a real silver-boom story, and the Utah Olympic Park adds the 2002 ski jumps and a small museum. Winter Park has the railway history of the Moffat Tunnel and a homestead ranch museum in Fraser, and little else, so a day of museums means the drive to Denver.

Deer Valley itself is fireside-lounge quiet, but Park City's Main Street a few minutes away has saloons, cocktail bars and après-ski spots that get properly lively on winter weekends, even if they close early and Utah's liquor rules apply.

Winter Park's going out is base-village après and brewery taprooms on the main road. It is cheerful during spring-break weeks, but the crowd is families and early risers, so it winds down sooner and has nothing like Main Street's choice of bars.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, and the difference lies in the kind of mountain. Deer Valley is about polish and choice: immaculately groomed, skiers-only runs, Park City Mountain next door, and the deep, light powder of Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude about an hour away in the Cottonwood Canyons, so one trip can take in several famous areas. In summer it adds fly-fishing on the Provo River and the high lakes of the Uintas.

Winter Park sits much higher, with summits above 3,600m, and its character comes from Mary Jane's steep bumps and tree runs alongside the groomed cruisers, plus a season that often lasts well into spring. Summer brings one of the country's best-known lift-served bike parks, and the moose and high tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park lie about an hour north.

The outings are about equal in pull, but they lean different ways. From Deer Valley, Salt Lake City is only about forty minutes off on a reliable road, with Temple Square and the Capitol, and the Heber Valley adds Midway, a steam railway and the arts village at Sundance.

Winter Park's best trips are over Berthoud Pass, to the Victorian brick main streets of Georgetown and Idaho Springs or north to the old lakeside resort of Grand Lake. Denver is further, about an hour and a half, and winter storms on the pass can upset plans in a way they rarely do from Deer Valley.

Both work well for skiing families, in different ways. Deer Valley is the smoother, more cosseted option, with ski-in lodging, wide groomed beginner runs free of snowboarders, and tubing, a coaster and ziplines at the Olympic park.

Winter Park feels more like a family village: a large children's ski school, a compact base where everything is a short walk away, and sleigh rides, skating, an alpine slide and mini golf on the spot. Its higher altitude is harder on small children for the first nights, while Deer Valley's cost is harder on the parents.

Deer Valley is the easier base. Free Park City buses tie its base areas to Main Street, Park City Mountain and Kimball Junction, historic Main Street is walkable, and Salt Lake City airport is only about forty minutes away.

Winter Park also has a free shuttle and a walkable base village, but its lodging is strung along kilometres of highway with no real strolling centre, and arriving from Denver means a high mountain pass that needs proper winter tyres in snow.

Deer Valley gives more to browse. Park City's Main Street mixes art galleries, western boots and hats and upmarket boutiques in its old mining-town façades, and the Kimball Junction outlets suit bargain hunters. Winter Park's shops are purely practical, for rentals, tuning, bike parts and the gloves you forgot, with a few souvenir stores and nothing to fill an afternoon.

Winter Park is the clearly cheaper trip, though neither is cheap. Its lifts, lessons and slopeside beds carry normal Colorado resort prices, but condos and motels in Fraser cost less, kitchens trim the food bill, and summer hiking and trails cost nothing.

Deer Valley sits at the very top of the ski market, with overwhelmingly luxury lodging and mountain meals to match. Summer eases things a little, but the usual way to save there is to sleep in the Heber Valley or Salt Lake City and drive in.

Deer Valley has a real summer programme, built around the Utah Symphony's long-running festival at the Snow Park amphitheatre, where people picnic on the lawn for classical, pops and visiting headliners. The restored 1920s Egyptian Theatre adds plays, comedy and small concerts all year. Winter Park offers free summer concerts in the town park and an après-ski band in winter, with no theatre at all, so a proper night out means Denver.

Deer Valley edges ahead for pure comfort, with quiet slopeside lodges, fireplaces and some of the most polished hotel spas in the mountain West, plus the warm spring pool inside the Homestead Crater's limestone dome in Midway.

Winter Park's rest is simpler: condo hot tubs, cold clean air and a few resort spas. Its real draw is Hot Sulphur Springs, where mineral pools step down a hillside above the Colorado River, a more natural soak than anything near Deer Valley.