Mammoth Lakes or Page, Arizona?

Page wins easily here. Lake Powell warms enough in summer for long, comfortable swims. You can drive down to the open sand at Lone Rock, or take a boat or kayak into sandstone coves and jump from the rock into deep water. The shoreline moves with the lake level, and there are no lifeguards.

Mammoth Lakes can only offer a brief, bracing dip. Horseshoe Lake and the lower Crowley Lake take swimmers in July and August, but the water stays cold, and most people go to the lakes to paddle and fish.

Neither town is a reason to travel for food, but Mammoth Lakes gives you more choice. Because it feeds a big winter crowd, it has steakhouses, a few more ambitious kitchens around the Village and beer brewed in town, alongside the breakfasts and burgers.

Page's main strip is diners, barbecue, Mexican places and chains, built for tour groups. It does have the Navajo taco, frybread piled with beans and meat, which is worth finding at a roadside stand and has no equivalent in Mammoth.

Neither is a sightseeing town, but Page has a little more to show. The Glen Canyon Dam, with its visitor centre and views down to the steel arch bridge, tells a real engineering story. There is also the John Wesley Powell museum, and the Navajo Nation around the town gives it a much older cultural layer. Mammoth Lakes has a log-cabin history museum about its mining and settler days, and the list more or less stops there.

Mammoth Lakes at least has an après-ski scene. In winter the Village and the bars near the lifts fill up in the late afternoon, and brewery taprooms keep long ski weekends going late. Page has a handful of bars and a brewpub and goes quiet early, because most visitors are up before dawn for the canyons. Its best evening out is the very dark, star-filled desert sky.

Both are outstanding, but the landscapes could hardly be more different. Mammoth Lakes is high alpine country. It has a huge ski mountain that becomes a bike park in summer, granite-ringed lakes and trails into the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses, plus Devils Postpile, Mono Lake's tufa towers and Tuolumne Meadows over Tioga Pass. It changes with the seasons, from snow to wildflowers to autumn aspens.

Page is red sandstone desert. The glowing slot walls of Antelope Canyon, the loop of Horseshoe Bend and the drowned canyons of Lake Powell, leading to Rainbow Bridge, are all close by. Rafting from Lees Ferry and the Vermilion Cliffs add more. Here the summer heat pushes you onto the water rather than up the trails.

Both towns are remote, but Mammoth Lakes has the stronger outings. Bodie, a gold-rush ghost town left in arrested decay, is a little over an hour north. Manzanar, the wartime internment camp, is a sobering, well-presented site to the south, with the town of Bishop on the way. Lee Vining and June Lake make shorter trips.

From Page the drives are longer and there is less to stop for. Lees Ferry's pioneer buildings make an easy half day, but the Betatakin cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument are about two hours away. Kanab is the only real town within reach, and the fortified Mormon ranch at Pipe Spring National Monument is close to it.

Mammoth Lakes is the easier place to bring children. In winter there are beginner slopes, a large ski school and a tubing hill. In summer there are rowing boats, trout fishing and the gondola to the summit, and condominiums with kitchens simplify daily life. The catch is the altitude, which can leave small children tired for a day or two, and there is nothing indoors for a bad-weather day.

Page has the lake days and the short Antelope Canyon tours that children love. Against that, the cliff edges at Horseshoe Bend are sheer and mostly unfenced, some canyon tours involve steep ladders, and summer sun and long drives wear young travellers down.

Mammoth Lakes lets you leave the car parked more often. Free winter shuttles run between your lodging and the lift bases, a gondola climbs from the Village, and in summer a trolley serves the Lakes Basin while a shuttle runs into Reds Meadow. For the wider Eastern Sierra you still need to drive.

In Page a car is essential from start to finish. There is no useful public transport, the lake and Horseshoe Bend lie outside town, and the nearest major airports are hours away.

In Mammoth Lakes you shop for gear, and in Page for Native American craft. Mammoth has good ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, plus a few galleries selling landscape photography. Page's trading posts and roadside stalls sell Navajo silver and turquoise jewellery, rugs and pottery, often bought straight from the maker. Beyond that, both offer little more than souvenirs and supplies.

Page is the less painful of two expensive places. Rooms are scarce in the busy months and Antelope Canyon can only be seen on paid tours. Boat hire adds up fast, but camping at Lone Rock or Wahweap keeps costs down.

Mammoth Lakes in winter is in a different league: lift tickets at a major American resort, ski rental and peak-week lodging all cost a lot. A summer visit is much cheaper there, since hiking and the lakes cost little beyond a park pass.

Mammoth Lakes has a modest stage of its own, while Page has almost none. Mammoth's community theatre runs regular seasons of plays on the college campus, and summer brings a long-running jazz festival, chamber music and concerts in meadows with the mountains behind. In Page you will find Navajo dance presentations put on for visitors and the odd bar band, but nothing to plan an evening around.

Mammoth Lakes is much the better place to slow down. Its volcanic ground feeds simple hot springs out in the sagebrush, where a soak facing the Sierra is a local ritual. The larger lodges add spas and hot tubs, and the shoulder seasons are quiet.

Page offers motel pools, wide views and dark skies, but a typical stay is built around early canyon tours and long drives. It suits an active trip more than a restful one.