Durango, Colorado or Park City?

Neither town is a place for a beach. Durango's water is mostly the Animas River, floated on inner tubes right through town, plus small swimming spots at Lake Nighthorse and Vallecito Lake.

Park City relies on Jordanelle Reservoir, with sandy swimming areas and paddleboarding, though most visitors only get wet in hotel pools and hot tubs. In both, the water is cool and the season brief.

The two eat at much the same level, but the mood differs. Durango is green-chile Southwestern plates, steakhouses and hiker breakfasts, and its real strength is beer, with an unusual number of breweries filled with cyclists and rafters.

Park City is more polished and pricier, with modern mountain cooking of elk, bison and trout on Main Street and the ritual of après-ski on slopeside decks. When either feels narrow, Park City has Salt Lake City's restaurants within easy reach, which Durango lacks.

Durango has more to see. Its railway heritage is alive, with steam locomotives leaving the old depot and a roundhouse museum beside them, and the downtown blocks of Victorian brick and sandstone hold together well. The college collection of Native American material adds depth, and the great Puebloan sites lie close by.

Park City's heritage is its silver-mining Main Street, the old headframes on the slopes and a good museum in the former city hall, along with the Olympic Park's ski museums. It is worth an afternoon, but little more.

Both towns go quiet well before the small hours, and neither suits anyone after a proper night out. Durango's evenings are brewery taprooms, patios on Main Avenue and old saloons with a piano player, with students livening a few bars at weekends.

Park City has a little more noise in ski season, with après-ski decks and a short run of Main Street bars with DJs or bands that can get rowdy on winter weekends. Out of season it sleeps early, and Salt Lake City is the escape.

Both are outstanding mountain bases, so the choice is about what kind of mountains. Durango's San Juans are wilder and more rugged, with the Weminuche Wilderness, the start of the Colorado Trail, rafting on the Animas through town and a ski resort half an hour north.

Park City is built around skiing, with two large areas rising from the streets, Utah's light powder and the steep resorts of Alta and Snowbird within an hour. In summer, lift-served biking and hundreds of kilometres of singletrack make it more convenient, if less remote.

Durango is the far stronger base for outings. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings, the narrow-gauge train to Silverton, the ruins at Aztec and the road on to Ouray make a varied list mixing ancient sites and old mining towns, though nearly all of it needs a car.

From Park City the main outing is Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the Capitol, plus the Heber Valley steam railway, Swiss-style Midway and Ogden's railroad street. Beyond those, it is mostly scenery.

Park City is easier with children. The ski schools and gentle learning areas are well run, free buses remove the car-seat shuffle, and the Olympic Park and resort bases add coasters, ziplines, climbing walls and alpine slides.

Durango works best for families who like the outdoors, with the canyon steam train, gentle tubing on the river and Mesa Verde's ladders to climb. It has fewer laid-on attractions and more long drives. Altitude can tire small children in both.

Park City is much easier without a car. Free buses connect Old Town, both ski bases, the lodging areas and Kimball Junction, and parking is awkward enough that leaving the car is the sensible choice, though excursions still need one.

Durango's flat centre is walkable in a quarter of an hour, with a river trail and a trolley along the main corridor. Beyond that, trailheads, the ski area and Mesa Verde all mean driving.

Park City has a little more range, with upscale ski fashion and jewellers on Main Street alongside galleries and Western wear, and an outlet centre at Kimball Junction for practical buys.

Durango's Main Avenue is smaller but has a more distinctive offer in Navajo and Pueblo silver, turquoise jewellery and rugs, plus good outdoor kit. Neither is a shopping destination.

Durango is clearly the cheaper of the two. It is still an American mountain resort, with rooms scarce in summer and at the height of the ski season, full restaurant prices plus a tip, and a hire car to budget for. Even so, it undercuts the famous ski towns, and spring and late autumn are gentler still.

Park City sits at the top of the North American resort market, with lift tickets, slopeside lodging and ski school all expensive and the Christmas and New Year weeks steeper again. Summer and autumn are far kinder, and many visitors watching their money sleep in the Heber Valley or Salt Lake City and drive up.

Both have modest stages that come alive mainly in summer. Durango leans to Western fun, with a Victorian melodrama where the audience boos the villain and chuckwagon cowboy shows, alongside a chamber music festival and the college concert hall.

Park City has the 1920s Egyptian Theatre running comedy and plays year round, and the Utah Symphony on the Deer Valley lawns in summer. For opera or ballet it can lean on Salt Lake City.

The two are about equal for unwinding, with different settings. Durango's appeal is natural hot springs, with mineral pools just north of town and terraced pools at Pagosa Springs an hour away.

Park City's strength is its large lodge spas at Deer Valley and the Canyons, with outdoor hot tubs in the snow, and the Homestead Crater in Midway, where you can swim inside a limestone dome.