Estes Park or Park City?

Neither town is a place to swim, but the summer water differs. Estes Park's lakes are fed by snowmelt and too cold for anything more than paddling or fishing from the shore. Park City at least has Jordanelle Reservoir down the valley, with sandy swimming areas and room to paddleboard for a short stretch of high summer. In both towns, most people who swim do it in a hotel pool.

Park City eats noticeably better. Its ski-town money pays for polished restaurants on Main Street and at the resort bases, cooking elk, trout and seasonal produce with some care, and après-ski adds a lively drinking ritual of its own.

Estes Park keeps to the hearty basics of a gateway town: barbecue, bison burgers, big breakfasts before the trail, a few breweries and the taffy shops on Elkhorn Avenue. Quality is uneven and many kitchens close early, so a memorable meal usually means driving down to Boulder.

Culture is a side attraction in both towns, and an afternoon covers either one. Estes Park's draw is the Stanley Hotel, the white hilltop hotel that inspired The Shining, which you can tour for its ghost stories, plus a small homesteading museum and the MacGregor Ranch. In Park City the old silver-mining town is the sight itself: restored storefronts on Main Street, mine headframes on the slopes, and Olympic museums at the 2002 Games venue.

Park City has a real if modest night out, especially in ski season. Evenings begin on slopeside decks as the lifts close, then move to Main Street, where saloons, cocktail bars and a few places with bands or DJs can get rowdy on winter weekends.

Estes Park has a handful of taprooms and saloon-style bars on Elkhorn Avenue that fill up after a day of hiking, and little else. The town is up before dawn for wildlife and is quiet well before midnight.

Both are outstanding mountain bases, built for different kinds of outdoors. Estes Park is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, with alpine tundra, Longs Peak, lakes such as Bear and Emerald, and wildlife everywhere, from elk bugling in town each autumn to bighorn sheep and moose.

Park City is more about doing than watching. Its two ski areas rise straight from the streets, and in summer the same slopes carry hundreds of kilometres of singletrack, with lifts taking bikes uphill. Choose Estes for hiking and wildlife, and Park City for skiing and mountain biking.

The day trips are about as good in both places, and the towns within reach are similar in kind. From Estes Park you drive down the canyons to college-town Boulder, Fort Collins with its Old Town and breweries, or Denver for big museums, all about an hour or more away. Park City has Salt Lake City much closer, about 40 minutes off, plus the Heber Valley steam railway, Swiss-style Midway and the canyon road past Sundance. Either way you need a car.

Park City is the easier family base, especially in winter. Its ski schools are well organised, free buses do away with car-seat logistics, and the Olympic Park and resort bases add alpine coasters, ziplines and climbing walls. Salt Lake City's zoo and aquarium are within an hour for a bad-weather day.

Estes Park suits outdoorsy families on a simpler scale: elk in the streets, junior ranger activities, flat lake walks, mini golf and the tramway up Prospect Mountain. Indoor options are scarce on rainy days, and long drives into the park can wear small children out.

Park City is much easier without a car. Free buses link Old Town, both ski bases, the outlying lodgings and Kimball Junction, and since parking is awkward, most visitors are glad to leave the car behind.

Estes Park has a compact, walkable downtown and summer shuttles to the Bear Lake corridor, but nearly everything else needs a car, from Trail Ridge Road to the towns on the plains. Summer weekends also bring heavy traffic in town.

Neither town is worth a trip for shopping, but Park City offers more. Main Street has galleries, jewellers, cowboy boots and upscale ski fashion, and Kimball Junction adds an outlet centre and chain stores. Estes Park's Elkhorn Avenue is mostly souvenirs, taffy, western wear and wildlife art, which is fine for an hour's browse before you head down to Boulder for anything more.

Estes Park is not a cheap place to stay either, but its expensive season is a hiking summer rather than a ski winter. From June into early autumn, hotels, cabins and lodges near the national park fill up and charge accordingly, and meals cost what they do in any American resort town, with tips on top. A visit never adds lift tickets or ski school, though. The main extra to plan for is a hire car if you are not driving your own.

Park City's peak costs more. In ski season, slopeside lodging, lift tickets, lessons and dinners on Main Street are among the most expensive in North American resorts, and the Christmas and New Year weeks are steeper still. Summer and autumn bring prices down considerably. Many visitors watching their money stay in Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley and drive up for the day.

Park City has more going on. The Egyptian Theatre, a 1920s playhouse on Main Street, puts on plays, comedy and cabaret all year, and in summer the Utah Symphony plays on the lawns at Deer Valley.

Estes Park offers free riverside concerts in summer, the odd evening at the Stanley Hotel and the Scottish-Irish Highland Festival in September, and is otherwise quiet. Either way, opera or major theatre means a drive to the nearest city.

Park City is better set up for pampering. The big lodges at Deer Valley and the Canyons base have large spas built around sore ski legs, outdoor hot tubs come with almost every stay, and in nearby Midway you can swim in the warm geothermal water of Homestead Crater.

Estes Park has no hot springs and only a few modest lodge spas. Its kind of rest is simpler: a riverside cabin, mountain air and elk at dusk, at its best in the quieter winter and spring.