Durango, Colorado or Mammoth Lakes?

Neither town is a place to swim, and in both the water stays cold even in July. What you do with it differs. In Durango the summer pleasure is floating the Animas on an inner tube right through town, with Lake Nighthorse for a short dip.

In Mammoth Lakes the swimming happens in alpine lakes such as Horseshoe Lake or the warmer Crowley reservoir. Most people there paddle or fish rather than swim, and Hot Creek is off limits to bathers.

Durango feeds you better. Its Southwestern green-chile plates and the kitchens cooking Colorado lamb and trout give meals a regional character, and the town has an unusual number of breweries for its size.

Mammoth Lakes eats like a ski resort: burgers, pizza, tacos and steakhouses built for big winter crowds, with little cuisine of its own. Some places also cut back in the quiet spring and autumn months.

Neither town is a sightseeing destination, but Durango at least has a town worth looking at. Its downtown still feels like a frontier railway town. A stroll past the mining-boom hotel fronts and old saloons, a look at the locomotives in the yard and a stop at the county museum in its old schoolhouse take an hour or two. After that, the bigger history lies in the country around the town rather than in its streets.

Mammoth Lakes offers much less. Almost nothing survives from its mining-camp years, so it feels like a modern resort built for skiing, and its one small museum is soon seen. Here, sightseeing means getting in the car, because the region's heritage is an hour or more away.

Both towns go quiet well before midnight, and neither has clubs. In Durango, evenings mean taproom patios, old saloons with a piano player, and a few bars kept busy by students at weekends. Mammoth Lakes depends more on the season: après-ski packs the Village in winter and can run late on long weekends, while summer nights are very quiet.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, so the choice comes down to the kind of landscape you want. Durango has the rugged San Juans, singletrack starting at the edge of town, the Colorado Trail, whitewater on the Animas and the dramatic drive north towards Silverton.

Mammoth Lakes offers the bigger ski mountain with the longer season, plus the volcanic Eastern Sierra. Its highlights are the granite-ringed Lakes Basin, the basalt columns of Devils Postpile, the tufa towers of Mono Lake and, in summer, Tuolumne Meadows about an hour away.

Durango has far better days out. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings, the narrow-gauge train up the canyon to Silverton, the ruins at Aztec and the hot springs of Pagosa Springs give you several full and very different excursions, though you need a car for almost all of them.

From Mammoth Lakes the options are thinner and further apart. Bodie ghost town and the Manzanar historic site are the high points. When the passes close in winter, Yosemite Valley is out of reach altogether.

Both suit outdoor families, and both have the same gaps: no zoos, aquariums or big museums for bad weather, and altitude that can tire small children at first. In Durango the treats are the steam train, gentle rafting and climbing the ladders at Mesa Verde. Mammoth Lakes adds a large ski school, a snow tubing hill, and rowing boats in the Lakes Basin, and condominiums with kitchens make family stays simpler.

Mammoth Lakes is easier to manage without a car, at least in winter. Free shuttles link the lodgings to the lift bases, a gondola rises from the Village, and in summer a trolley runs up to the lakes and shuttles serve Reds Meadow.

Durango has the more walkable centre: a quarter of an hour covers Main Avenue, and the river trail links the parks. Beyond town, though, trailheads, the ski area and Mesa Verde all need a hire car.

Durango gives you an afternoon worth spending. Main Avenue has Navajo and Pueblo silver, turquoise jewellery, rugs, Western boots and galleries, alongside its outdoor shops. Mammoth Lakes is purely practical, with good ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, rental outlets and souvenirs, and nothing you would travel to buy.

Durango is the gentler of the two on cost. It is still a US mountain resort with full restaurant prices, but it is cheaper than the famous Colorado ski towns and drops noticeably in spring and late autumn.

Mammoth Lakes is the expensive one. Its lift tickets are among the costliest anywhere, and lodging, ski hire and even groceries carry resort prices. A summer visit spent hiking and driving, with self-catering, is the way to keep the bill down.

Durango has more to watch. There is a summer chamber and orchestral festival, a college concert hall that hosts touring music and dance, and Western fun in the form of a Victorian melodrama and chuckwagon supper shows. Mammoth Lakes has a resident community theatre that plays through the year, plus a summer jazz festival and outdoor concerts in the meadows, but no touring programme.

Hot springs are the draw in both places, but the experience is quite different. Durango's are developed mineral pools a few minutes north of town, with the terraced pools of Pagosa Springs an hour away. Mammoth Lakes offers primitive pools out in the sagebrush, reached by dirt road and without facilities, which can be crowded at sunset. For massages and hot tubs, Mammoth relies on its big lodges.