Keystone or Palm Springs?

Neither has a beach, and both put you in a heated pool rather than open water. At Keystone, Dillon Reservoir is for sailing and paddleboarding, since snowmelt makes it too cold for swimming, so the water you actually get into is a lodge hot tub on a cold evening.

In Palm Springs, almost every hotel and rental house is built around a pool, and lounging beside it through the long hot season is much of the point. The ocean is about two hours away over the mountains.

Palm Springs gives you more to eat, though neither will impress serious food lovers. Keystone has slopeside grills, après-ski burgers and a summit dining room reached by gondola, and the local touches are Colorado lamb, elk, trout and craft beer. Many visitors self-cater or drive to Frisco or Breckenridge for more choice.

Palm Springs adds long patio brunches, poolside cocktails, date shakes from the groves around Indio and honest taquerias in the valley towns further east. Fine dining is still thin, and some kitchens cut back in the summer heat.

Here Palm Springs is well ahead. Keystone is a 1970s ski resort, and its history lies outside it, in the mining ruins along the Snake River valley and the Victorian towns nearby.

Palm Springs has one of the densest collections of mid-century modern buildings anywhere, including Albert Frey's houses, Neutra's Kaufmann House and the folded roofs of Twin Palms. Add the art museum and the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum and you have a couple of good days of sightseeing.

Palm Springs makes a better night out, but neither is a party town. Keystone's evenings peak at après-ski on the decks at River Run and are mostly over after dinner, because the crowd is families and early risers. Anyone who wants more heads to Breckenridge's Main Street.

Palm Springs has Arenas Road, a long-established strip of LGBTQ bars with drag nights and patios, plus retro cocktail lounges and hotel pool parties at spring weekends. Real clubs are scarce, and the town empties in summer.

Both are outdoor destinations, but Keystone has more to offer. It skis bowls above 3,600m, Arapahoe Basin is minutes away and Vail and Copper Mountain are within an hour. In summer there are 14,000ft peaks, alpine tundra at Loveland Pass and lift-served biking, and this range holds across both seasons.

Palm Springs has its own drama, with the tramway rising to pine forest on San Jacinto, palm oases in the Indian Canyons and Joshua Tree about an hour away. The summer heat, though, cuts its outdoor season to autumn through spring.

Keystone gives you more varied outings. Breckenridge's Victorian centre is about half an hour away, the silver towns of Georgetown and Silver Plume are linked by an old loop railway, and there is Leadville's opera house and Vail's Tyrolean village. Denver is reachable for museums, though weekend ski traffic on I-70 can make the trip slow.

Palm Springs offers smaller, quirkier trips, such as Pioneertown's old film set, Salvation Mountain, Idyllwild in the pines and the Temecula wineries. Los Angeles and San Diego are too far to visit in a day.

Keystone is the place with children, at least in winter. It has a big ski school, gentle lower slopes, tubing, a snow fort on the mountain and the large skating rink at Lakeside Village, and condos with kitchens make life easier. Altitude and cold both need planning, and away from the snow there is less to do.

Palm Springs works as a pool vacation with outings to the Living Desert, the tramway and the Air Museum. But many hotels are adults-only, and the midday heat from late spring rules out a lot.

Keystone is easier once you have arrived. Free shuttles link its bases, and free county buses run to Dillon, Frisco and Breckenridge, so a car is optional. Getting there from Denver means a drive or shuttle on I-70, where winter brings chain rules.

In Palm Springs, the downtown strip is walkable and the airport sits on the edge of town. Everything else, from the canyons to Joshua Tree, needs a car, because the valley buses are slow and infrequent.

Palm Springs is the better place to shop and has a speciality of its own. The Uptown Design District is full of mid-century furniture, lighting and vintage clothing, and El Paseo in Palm Desert and the Cabazon outlets cover mainstream shopping.

Keystone's shops are mostly ski gear and rentals. The one real draw is the outlet centre in Silverthorne, ten minutes away.

Both are costly, but Keystone costs more. Lift access, rentals, ski school and slopeside rooms make a winter week there expensive, especially over Christmas and spring break, although free buses and condo kitchens help.

Palm Springs is dear from winter into spring and you need a hire car. In the hottest months, though, room rates drop sharply, and simple motels keep costs down all year.

Live music around Keystone is largely an outdoor summer affair: concerts on the village stages, the amphitheatre at Dillon with the reservoir behind it, and Breckenridge's long-running classical festival. In winter the main offer is Silverthorne's professional theatre company, plus acoustic sets at après-ski.

Palm Springs draws bigger names over a longer season. Each April the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals fill the polo grounds at Indio, the McCallum Theatre and the casinos bring touring shows and well-known bands through the cooler months, and in town drag cabaret and piano bars set the tone. Here the programme goes quiet in summer, which is exactly when Keystone's gets going.

Palm Springs was built on its hot spring, and it shows. You can soak in the Agua Caliente spring downtown or in the mineral pools of Desert Hot Springs' spa motels, and the slow pace of the place does the rest.

In Keystone, wellness means easing tired legs: a resort massage, or a hot tub under falling snow. The nearest natural hot springs are over the pass in Idaho Springs.