Estes Park or Salt Lake City?

Neither city is for a beach vacation. In Estes Park the lakes are fed by snowmelt and stay too cold for swimming, so you paddle or fish from the shore and swim in a pool.

Salt Lake City has a little more to offer. You can float in the Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island just for the experience, and the Wasatch reservoirs such as Jordanelle and Pineview have paddleboards and sandy patches of shore on a hot day.

Estes Park's food is what you would expect of a town at the gate to a national park: bison burgers, barbecue, big breakfasts, a few breweries and taffy on Elkhorn Avenue. Kitchens close early, and many do less outside summer.

Salt Lake City has more range and more to discover, especially the Mexican, Peruvian, Pacific Islander and Vietnamese cooking along State Street, along with local quirks like fry sauce and fried scones. Neither is a food destination, but a week of meals is much more varied in the city.

In Estes Park, sightseeing mostly means the Stanley Hotel, with its links to The Shining and its ghost tours. Add the small town museum and the MacGregor Ranch and you have an afternoon's worth.

Salt Lake City has a real historic centre in Temple Square, with the granite temple, the domed Tabernacle and Brigham Young's Beehive House. Beyond it are the State Capitol, the painted Cathedral of the Madeleine and the dinosaur halls of the Natural History Museum. That only fills a couple of days, but it is a couple of days more than the mountain town can give.

Both are early-to-bed places, but Estes Park is the quieter of the two. It has brewery taprooms and saloon-style bars on Elkhorn Avenue, no clubs at all, and very little happening after ten.

Salt Lake City adds a downtown cluster of bars and a few dance clubs around Main Street and the Granary District, a long-standing gay bar scene and the pubs of Sugar House, all under Utah's stricter liquor rules. It is modest, but it gives you a choice of evenings that the mountain town cannot.

Both sit beside superb mountains, and the difference is in what you do there. Estes Park opens straight onto Rocky Mountain National Park, with Trail Ridge Road crossing alpine tundra below Longs Peak and elk, bighorn sheep and moose seen almost daily. It is a place for summer and autumn hiking and wildlife, with no ski resort nearby.

Salt Lake City's Cottonwood Canyons lead to Alta, Snowbird and, over the ridge, Park City's ski areas, which makes it the winter choice, and in summer the same canyons have lakes and peak hikes. To the west it adds a desert landscape the Rockies town lacks, with bison on Antelope Island and the white Bonneville Salt Flats.

Estes Park has the slightly better set of outings. Boulder and Fort Collins are each about an hour down the canyons, Denver's museums are a little further, and in summer Grand Lake lies over Trail Ridge Road. Together they add a city day or two to a mountain stay.

From Salt Lake City, the obvious outing is Park City's Victorian Main Street, followed by Midway, Heber and Ogden's 25th Street. The list runs short after that, and Utah's famous red-rock parks are too far for a day trip.

Estes Park suits families who like the outdoors: elk in the streets, junior ranger activities, flat walks around the lakes, mini golf and the Prospect Mountain tramway. The altitude can tire small children, though, and there is little to do on a wet day.

Salt Lake City has a zoo, an aquarium, a children's museum, a planetarium and the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum, with Lagoon's roller coasters nearby and ski schools in winter. Restaurants expect children, and the main drawback is the driving between attractions spread across the valley.

The centre of Estes Park is small enough to walk, and summer shuttles reach the Bear Lake trailheads. There is no rail link, though, and almost everything else needs a car.

Salt Lake City has TRAX light rail from the airport through downtown to the University, FrontRunner trains to Ogden and Provo, and ski buses up the canyons in winter. The long blocks are tiring on foot and the valley is spread out, so a car still helps, but you can manage much of a city stay without one.

In Estes Park, shopping means an hour on Elkhorn Avenue among souvenirs, taffy, western wear and wildlife art. Salt Lake City has department stores and familiar brands at City Creek Center, shops in the old streetcar barns of Trolley Square, independent shops around 9th and 9th and Sugar House, and excellent local outdoor gear shops, which are the best reason to go shopping in either place.

Neither is cheap, but Salt Lake City is easier on the budget. In summer and early autumn Estes Park's lodgings fill up and charge resort-town prices, and hiring a car is almost unavoidable. Cheaper rooms in winter and spring, and cabins where you can cook, help.

In Salt Lake City, downtown hotels are reasonable, Temple Square costs nothing and light rail is cheap. The expensive part is a ski week, with lift tickets and lodging in the canyons. So the two have opposite costly seasons: summer in the mountain town, winter in the city.

Estes Park's performing arts are mostly a summer affair: free concerts at the riverside performance park, music evenings at the Stanley and the Highland Festival each September. There is little for the rest of the year.

Salt Lake City has the Tabernacle Choir, whose rehearsals and broadcasts are open to the public, daily organ recitals, the Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall, Utah Opera, Ballet West and touring Broadway shows at the Eccles Theater. If you want an evening at a performance, the city is the only real option of the two.

Rest in Estes Park comes from stillness: a cabin by a river, mountain air and elk grazing at dusk, at its most restful in winter and spring once the summer visitors have gone. For treatments there are only a few lodge and resort spas.

Near Salt Lake City it comes as warm mineral water instead. The most memorable soak is at the Homestead Crater in Midway, about an hour away, inside a beehive-shaped limestone dome, and the spas at the ski resorts and in Park City are there for after a day on the slopes. Neither is a place you would choose just to be pampered.