Estes Park or Whitefish?

Whitefish is the only one of the two where swimming is part of the plan. City Beach on Whitefish Lake has a sandy strip and a dock right in town, and Flathead Lake has clearer water and pebbly state park shores, though the water is only warm enough for a few weeks of summer.

Estes Park sits at about 2,300m, and its lakes are for looking at, not swimming in. Lake Estes and the park's alpine lakes stay cold all year, so a hotel pool or the indoor aquatic centre is the realistic place to swim.

Both towns eat like mountain towns, with elk and bison, breweries and a distillery or two, and neither is worth the journey for the food. Whitefish cooks with a little more care: trout, wood-fired pizza, huckleberries in almost everything through late summer, and a few more ambitious dining rooms on Central Avenue. Estes Park leans towards big breakfasts before the trail, barbecue and the taffy and fudge shops of Elkhorn Avenue, and more of its kitchens close early or cut back once summer ends.

Estes Park comes out ahead because of the Stanley Hotel, the white hotel on a rise above town that inspired The Shining and is known well beyond Colorado. Tours cover its history and ghost stories, and the homesteading museum and MacGregor Ranch add a little more.

Whitefish has less to see: mainly the timber Great Northern depot with its small railway and logging museum, plus some early twentieth-century shopfronts downtown. In both towns, the sights fill a rainy afternoon rather than give you a reason to visit.

Whitefish is the livelier of the two after dark, though only by small-town standards. Its Central Avenue saloons, with pool tables and a crowd of ranchers and ski bums, pick up when the après-ski crowd comes down from the mountain in winter, and in summer people fill the patios.

Estes Park goes to bed early. A few taprooms and saloon-style bars on Elkhorn Avenue fill up after a day's hiking, and the town is quiet soon after ten, since most visitors are up at dawn to see the elk. Neither town has a club.

Both are excellent gateways to a great park, and the difference is how easy it is to get in and when. Rocky Mountain National Park begins a few minutes from Estes Park. Trail Ridge Road crosses tundra above 3,700m, elk come into town, and the park stays open in winter for snowshoeing, though there is no ski resort nearby.

Glacier is about forty minutes from Whitefish and feels wilder, with grizzlies, mountain goats, the Highline Trail and the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Its high country, though, is reliably open only from July to September. In return, Whitefish has skiing on Big Mountain right above town and lakes for paddling on its doorstep.

Estes Park has the better day trips, because the Front Range towns are close. Boulder and Fort Collins are each about an hour down the canyons, the first with Pearl Street and the Flatirons, the second with its historic Old Town and breweries. Denver's museums are only a little further.

The towns around Whitefish are smaller: the Conrad Mansion in Kalispell, the galleries and summer theatre of Bigfork, cherry orchards along Flathead Lake, and the mission church at St Ignatius two hours south. From Whitefish, most days out lead into the wilderness rather than to another town.

Estes Park is the better pick with children. Elk walk through the streets, the park runs junior ranger activities, and the town fills the rest of the day with mini golf, go-karts, horse riding, the Prospect Mountain tramway and taffy along the Riverwalk. The main thing to watch is the altitude, which can tire young children for the first day.

Whitefish works too, especially in winter with its ski school. In summer the mountain's zip line and alpine slide, and the calm water at City Beach, keep children busy. It has fewer things for children in town, though, and the drives into Glacier are longer for small passengers.

Getting around is much the same in both: a few walkable blocks downtown, then a car for almost everything else. Whitefish has the rare advantage of a long-distance train that stops at its depot, plus a free ski-season shuttle to the mountain. Estes Park has no rail link and is about an hour and a half's drive from Denver, but its free summer shuttles to the Bear Lake corridor spare you the trailhead parking that Glacier's limited shuttle does not.

Neither town is a place for serious shopping, and both main streets sell western wear, outdoor gear and wildlife art. Whitefish's Central Avenue feels a little more local, with Montana-made goods and huckleberry jam, and Kalispell's big stores are twenty minutes away. Elkhorn Avenue in Estes Park leans more towards T-shirts, souvenirs and taffy, and for anything more you have to drive to Boulder or Denver.

Both are expensive American resort towns in their busy months, with restaurant bills plus tips and a hire car to budget for. The difference is when prices ease.

Estes Park is at its most expensive in summer and early autumn but much cheaper in winter and spring, and cabins with kitchens help families keep costs down. Whitefish has two high seasons, summer and skiing, with some relief in late spring and autumn, and you can stay more cheaply in Kalispell or Columbia Falls.

Whitefish has more on stage, especially for a town its size. A community performing arts centre hosts shows through the year, a summer theatre company puts on professional productions, and the valley's symphony orchestra plays in Kalispell and has its own summer festival.

Estes Park has free summer concerts at its riverside performance park, the occasional evening at the Stanley and the Scottish-Irish Highland Festival with its pipe bands in September. Outside summer there is little on, so theatre and orchestras mean a drive to Boulder or Denver.

In both towns, rest comes from the setting rather than from spas, and neither has hot springs nearby. Whitefish has a little more to book, with lodge spas around the lake and on the mountain, yoga studios in town and quiet mornings by the lake. In Estes Park, rest means a cabin by a river with elk at dusk, and it is at its best in winter and spring, when the summer crowds have gone.