Keystone or Steamboat Springs?

Neither is a place to swim. At Keystone, Dillon Reservoir is for sailing and the view, and most swimming happens in hotel pools. Steamboat at least gets you into natural water in summer, floating down the Yampa through town on a tube or taking a quick, cold dip in Steamboat Lake or Stagecoach in July and August.

The food is much the same standard, but the setting differs. At Keystone you eat at the resort, with grills at the bases and a dining room at the summit reached by gondola, and many visitors cook in their condo or drive to Frisco or Breckenridge for more choice.

Steamboat's restaurants are in a real downtown on Lincoln Avenue, and Yampa Valley ranching pushes the menus towards steaks, Colorado lamb and hearty western cooking, with a few Mexican places and breweries as well. It is a nicer place to stroll out to dinner, though the range is no wider.

Steamboat has more to show, though not much more. Its Lincoln Avenue storefronts and the Tread of Pioneers Museum tell the story of the homesteaders and the Norwegian ski jumper who brought skiing here, and Howelsen Hill is a piece of skiing history right in town.

Keystone was built for skiing in the 1970s, and River Run is modern and practical. Its history lies outside the resort, in the mining ruins and cabins of the Snake River valley and the Victorian towns nearby.

Steamboat keeps going longer. After après-ski at the gondola base, people head downtown to Lincoln Avenue's saloons and brewpubs, and in ski season some of them stay busy into the late evening. Keystone's evenings are après-ski on the River Run decks and then an early night, since the resort is full of families and people up for first chair. For more, you go to Breckenridge's Main Street. Neither has a club scene.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, but they feel different. Keystone is high and has plenty of ski areas close by: its own three peaks run up to bowls well above the treeline, Arapahoe Basin is just up the road, and Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Vail are all within an hour. In summer, two of Colorado's highest summits and the alpine tundra around Loveland Pass are a short drive away.

Steamboat has one big ski mountain, famous for light Champagne Powder and tree runs through aspen glades, plus night skiing and Nordic trails at Howelsen Hill in town. Its summers are greener and wilder, with the Mount Zirkel Wilderness, fly fishing on the Yampa, and elk and moose. At about 2,050m it is also much easier on the lungs than Keystone.

This is Keystone's clearest advantage. Breckenridge's Victorian centre is half an hour away, Georgetown and Silver Plume are linked by their old loop railway, Leadville keeps its opera house, and Vail is under an hour west. Denver's museums are within reach too, if I-70 traffic allows.

Steamboat is remote. The nearby ranching towns are worth no more than a coffee stop, and Vail and Denver are two and three hours of mountain driving away, so a day out there means the hills, not another town.

Both work well for children who like being outdoors, with good ski schools and gentle beginner slopes. Keystone is built around the family ski trip: there is a snow fort on the mountain, a huge skating rink on the frozen lake at Lakeside and condos a short walk from the lifts.

Steamboat's advantage is Old Town Hot Springs, where slides and a climbing wall fill an afternoon whatever the weather. Summer brings the rodeo and tubing on the Yampa, and the town is calm, with restaurants used to children. At Keystone, young children may also need more time to adjust to the altitude.

Neither is hard once you are there, but they work differently. At Keystone, free shuttles link the three bases, and free county buses run to Dillon, Frisco and Breckenridge, so you can manage without a car. Getting there means a shuttle or the drive over I-70 from Denver, which can be slow in winter.

Steamboat's town bus links the flat, walkable downtown to the ski base, but the hot springs, falls and lakes are up roads that buses do not serve, so a car is close to essential. Many visitors fly into the small airport at Hayden.

Shopping is limited in both, in different ways. Near Keystone, the draw is the large outlet centre in Silverthorne for brand-name outdoor wear. In Steamboat, it is the western-wear stores on Lincoln Avenue, led by the long-established family outfitter F.M. Light & Sons, along with a few galleries, which makes a more characterful hour's browsing.

Both are costly, above all in ski season and over the Christmas, New Year and spring-break weeks, and summer is gentler at both. Keystone makes self-catering easy, with condo kitchens, free buses and supermarkets in Dillon and Silverthorne. Steamboat is a little easier on the wallet, with free trails and parks and cheaper spells in spring and late autumn, though some places close then.

Steamboat has a little more, and it is in town. The Strings Music Festival fills a pavilion on the edge of town with chamber music, jazz and bluegrass all summer, and Perry-Mansfield, founded in 1913, stages student theatre and dance in Strawberry Park.

Keystone relies more on its neighbours, with Dillon's amphitheatre by the reservoir and Breckenridge's classical festival. It does have Silverthorne's year-round professional theatre ten minutes away, which matters on a winter evening.

Hot water is what Steamboat is named after, and here it wins clearly. Spring-fed pools sit in the middle of town, and about 11km up a mountain road the rock-lined pools of Strawberry Park Hot Springs steam in a wooded creek valley.

At Keystone, unwinding means a lodge hot tub or a resort spa after skiing. The nearest natural springs are over the pass at Idaho Springs.