Jackson Hole or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither place is for swimming, but Jackson Hole at least offers a real lake swim. String Lake is shallow and sandy-bottomed and warms enough by late summer for a dip between hikes. Winter Park's nearest water, at Grand Lake and the Granby reservoirs, stays cold with snowmelt even in July and is used for paddling, so there a swim means a hotel pool or the hot springs pools.

Jackson Hole eats noticeably better. The money passing through the valley supports chef-driven dining rooms, serious wine lists and coffee roasters around the Town Square. Elk, bison and trout come with huckleberries, and in summer there is a farmers' market on the square.

Winter Park's table is ski-town fuel: breakfast burritos before the lifts open, green chile and burgers at the slopeside lodges, and pizza, barbecue and brewery taprooms along the highway. It feeds an active day well enough, but it has nothing comparable to Jackson's better dinners and no market life.

Jackson Hole's sights are small, but they easily fill a day between hikes. The National Museum of Wildlife Art overlooks the elk refuge, and the antler arches and boardwalks give the town its Western character. Inside the park, the barns of Mormon Row and the log Chapel of the Transfiguration frame the Tetons.

Winter Park's heritage comes down to the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a small ranch museum in Fraser, both of which take an hour or two at most. Anyone wanting a proper museum day has to drive to Denver.

Jackson Hole's classic night out is a historic saloon with saddles for bar stools and a country dance floor. Cocktail bars and brewpubs around the square, along with the loud après-ski bars at Teton Village, give you a choice of evenings, at least in winter and summer.

Winter Park offers après-ski and little else. The base-village bars fill at last lift, and a few pubs and taprooms on the main road carry on a little longer. The crowd is mostly families and people chasing first chair, and summer evenings are quieter still.

Both are outstanding mountain bases, and Jackson Hole's edge is wilderness and wildlife. The Tetons rise with no foothills, Grand Teton National Park begins minutes from town and Yellowstone's south entrance is within driving range. Bison, moose, bears and the wintering elk herd are part of daily life, the tram climbs to 3,185m above some of the steepest lift-served terrain in North America, and summer brings rafting and fly fishing on the Snake.

Winter Park is more about the lifts. Its two connected mountains pair the groomed cruisers of Winter Park with the bumps and trees of Mary Jane, and the season often runs well into spring. In summer the slopes become a well-known bike park with plenty of singletrack nearby. Rocky Mountain National Park's quieter west side is about an hour north.

Winter Park has far better outings. About an hour over Berthoud Pass, the Victorian mining towns of Georgetown and Idaho Springs have brick main streets and a narrow-gauge railway loop. Grand Lake offers an old resort boardwalk, and Denver and Boulder are close enough for a day, as long as the pass is clear.

From Jackson Hole, almost every excursion heads into the parks rather than to another town. The Idaho farm towns of Victor and Driggs over Teton Pass, and the ranch towns to the south, make pleasant drives but not destinations.

Both work well for active families, in different ways. Jackson Hole is the wildlife vacation: spotting bison and moose from the car, Junior Ranger badges, a sleigh ride through the elk herd, the summer rodeo and the staged shootout on the square. The trade-off is long drives into the parks.

Winter Park is the easier ski week. Its large children's ski school, gentle slopes at the base and walkable village keep logistics simple, and summer adds an alpine slide and mini golf. It sits higher, though, so altitude headaches are more likely for the first night or two. Neither town has much for a rainy day.

Winter Park is the easier of the two without a car. A free shuttle links the ski base, the town and Fraser, so a ski week can be done on foot and by bus. The national park and Grand Lake still need a car, though, and lodgings are spread along the highway rather than gathered around a walkable centre.

Jackson Hole has the nicer town to walk, with everything a few blocks from the Town Square, and a bus out to Teton Village. Beyond that, there is no public transport into Grand Teton or Yellowstone, and a car is close to essential for trailheads and dawn wildlife drives.

Jackson Hole is the place for browsing. Its covered boardwalks are lined with galleries of Western and wildlife art, along with handmade cowboy hats, boots, turquoise jewellery and top-end mountain gear. Winter Park's shops are for rentals, tuning and the gloves you forgot, and serious shopping means a drive to Denver.

Jackson Hole is costly in both of its seasons. Summer, when visitors arrive for the parks, is as dear as the ski months, rooms can be hard to find at any price, and rafting, wildlife tours and a rental car all add up quickly. What softens the bill is that the main attraction costs little: each park's modest entry fee opens up the trails, viewpoints and roadside bison, and a bed on the Idaho side of Teton Pass trims the biggest single expense.

Winter Park is the cheaper of the two, but a ski week there is still no bargain. Lift tickets, rentals and lessons carry Colorado resort prices, and with few cheap places to eat, the restaurant bill climbs fast. The gap between the two towns is widest in summer, when Winter Park's rates fall just as Jackson's busiest and dearest season begins.

Jackson Hole has a real programme, at least in summer. The Grand Teton Music Festival, running since the 1960s, brings orchestral players to a timber hall in Teton Village, and the town adds an arts centre, chuckwagon dinner shows and country bands. Winter Park has free concerts in the town park on summer evenings and a band in an après-ski bar the rest of the year, with no theatre or concert hall.

For rest the two are about even, but the soaking differs. Jackson Hole's hot springs are more of an outing: a pool in a forested canyon that in winter is reached by snowmobile or dog sled, a riverside park of pools on the Snake, and polished spas at the luxury resorts.

Winter Park relies more on the condo hot tub after a day outside. Its main bathing trip is Hot Sulphur Springs, half an hour west, where pools of different temperatures step down a hillside above the Colorado River.