Estes Park or Mammoth Lakes?

Neither town is a place to swim, but Mammoth Lakes at least offers a hardy swimmer a summer dip. In July and August people do go into Horseshoe Lake in the Lakes Basin, and Crowley Lake, lower down, is a little less cold.

Estes Park offers less. Lake Estes and the park's alpine lakes stay snowmelt-cold all summer, so people walk the shores, paddle and fish instead, and anyone who wants to swim uses a hotel pool or the indoor aquatic centre.

Eating out is much alike in both: filling, informal food that follows a day outdoors rather than giving a reason to come. The flavour differs. Estes Park leans western, with elk and bison, barbecue, big breakfasts before the trail, a distillery or two and the taffy and fudge shops of Elkhorn Avenue.

Mammoth Lakes cooks for a large ski crowd, so its pizza, tacos and steakhouses cover a slightly broader range, and the Village has a few more ambitious dinner kitchens. In both towns some places cut back out of season.

Estes Park has the one sight here worth planning around: the Stanley Hotel, the white hotel on a rise above the valley that inspired The Shining, with tours of its public rooms and its ghost stories. The homesteading museum and the MacGregor Ranch under Lumpy Ridge add a modest afternoon.

Mammoth Lakes, a mining camp that became a ski resort of condominiums and lodges, has little beyond its log-cabin history museum. Its real heritage lies an hour or more out of town.

Mammoth Lakes has the livelier evenings, thanks to après-ski. In winter the Village and the bars by the lifts fill from late afternoon, and long ski weekends can run late, though it goes quiet out of season.

Estes Park keeps hikers' hours all year. Its brewery taprooms and saloon-style bars on Elkhorn Avenue are busy around dinner, and little happens after ten. Neither town has clubs.

Both are outstanding mountain bases, so the choice comes down to which mountains you want. Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. It has Trail Ridge Road over the tundra, hikes to Bear, Dream and Emerald lakes and Longs Peak overhead, with elk, bighorn sheep and moose close at hand. The autumn elk rut is a spectacle in itself.

Mammoth Lakes sits under a major ski mountain that becomes a bike park in summer, and the Eastern Sierra around it is volcanic and dry. There is Devils Postpile, the tufa towers of Mono Lake, Convict Lake and the Yosemite high country over Tioga Pass. For skiing there is no contest, as Estes Park has no ski resort nearby.

Estes Park has the slightly better choice of outings because the plains below hold real towns. Boulder and Fort Collins are about an hour away, Denver's museums a little further, and in summer Grand Lake lies over Trail Ridge Road.

From Mammoth Lakes the outings are fewer and more spread out, but more unusual: the ghost town of Bodie, the wartime internment camp at Manzanar, Bishop and Lee Vining on Mono Lake. Winter pass closures narrow the choice, and both towns need a car for all of it.

Both suit outdoor families about equally well. They are small and safe, short of museums for a wet day, and both need a day or two to get used to the altitude. Estes Park offers wildlife and easy fun: elk wandering through town, junior ranger activities, flat lake walks, mini golf, go-karts and the tramway up Prospect Mountain.

Mammoth Lakes comes into its own for a winter family trip, with a large ski school, gentle beginner slopes and a tubing hill. In summer it adds rowing boats, trout fishing, the bike park and the summit gondola for older children.

Mammoth Lakes is easier without a car, at least for skiers. Free winter shuttles and a gondola from the Village to the slopes make a ski week possible by bus and on foot, and in summer a trolley and a shuttle reach the Lakes Basin and Reds Meadow.

Estes Park has the more walkable centre along Elkhorn Avenue and the Riverwalk, and summer shuttles run to Bear Lake. For most other things you need to drive, and summer weekends bring heavy traffic and scarce parking. Neither town has a train.

Estes Park has better shops to browse. Elkhorn Avenue mixes souvenirs and taffy with western wear, outdoor gear and galleries selling wildlife art and jewellery, enough for a pleasant hour.

Mammoth Lakes is more about equipment, with good ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops and rental outlets but little to browse for its own sake. Keen shoppers will find neither town enough.

Neither is cheap, but Estes Park is easier on the wallet. Its peak is summer and early autumn, rooms are far cheaper in winter and spring, and once inside the national park the hiking and wildlife cost nothing beyond the entry fee.

Mammoth Lakes is dearest in winter, when lift tickets, ski rental and peak-week lodging add up quickly. Summer and the shoulder months are kinder, and cooking in a condominium kitchen is the usual way to save.

Both are modest, in different ways. What Estes Park has is seasonal: free summer concerts at the riverside performance park, evenings at the Stanley Hotel and the Scottish-Irish Highland Festival in September.

Mammoth Lakes has a stage that runs all year, a community theatre company on the college campus. Summer adds a long-running jazz festival, chamber music and concerts in meadows with the mountains behind. Neither has a concert hall.

Mammoth Lakes is clearly better for unwinding because of its volcanic ground. Soaking in a simple hot spring out in the sagebrush, with the Sierra across the valley, is a local ritual, and the large lodges add spas and hot tubs for ski-tired legs.

Estes Park has no hot springs and only a few lodge spas. Its calm comes instead from a riverside cabin, elk at dusk and quiet evenings, and it is most restful in winter and spring.