Mammoth Lakes or Portland?

Mammoth Lakes is far from any sea. A swim in Horseshoe Lake or Crowley Lake is possible in July and August, but the water stays cold. Hot Creek is off limits for bathing.

Neither is a place for a beach vacation, but Portland offers a little more. Locals swim in the rivers, from the small sandy beaches on the downtown waterfront to the longer stretches on Sauvie Island. Cannon Beach makes a fine coast walk about an hour and a half away, even if the Pacific is too cold and rough for most swimmers.

Mammoth Lakes feeds people after a day outside: big breakfasts, burgers, steaks and beer from the town's brewery. Prices climb in the peak ski weeks and some kitchens cut back in spring and autumn. Here, meals are fuel rather than a reason to come.

In Portland, eating is one of the main reasons to visit. The food cart pods offer a cheap tour of the world's kitchens. Neighbourhood restaurants cook with salmon, Dungeness crab and hazelnuts. Coffee, craft beer and Willamette Valley wine add a great deal to any stay.

Mammoth Lakes has almost nothing to see beyond a small history museum in a log cabin, and the region's real heritage sites lie an hour or more away. Portland is no great museum city either, but the Portland Art Museum, the Oregon Historical Society, the Lan Su Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden fill two or three good days, and Pittock Mansion has the view across the city to Mount Hood.

Evenings in Mammoth Lakes revolve around après-ski. In winter the Village bars and taprooms fill in the late afternoon, then the town goes quiet early, and in summer it is quieter still. Portland has far more going on, though in bars rather than clubs: taprooms, dive bars with pinball machines and cocktail bars along Alberta, Division, Hawthorne and Belmont, open until about 2.30am, with a relaxed crowd that comes to talk.

Both are made for the outdoors, but Mammoth Lakes is the purer mountain base. One of North America's largest ski areas rises above the town, and the Lakes Basin and Reds Meadow are minutes away. The Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses, Mono Lake and, in summer, the Tuolumne high country are all within reach of a day out.

Portland's nature comes with a city attached. Forest Park's trails start from the edge of the northwest streets, and the Columbia River Gorge and Multnomah Falls are half an hour away. Mount Hood offers skiing and alpine hiking about an hour and a half away, though the long grey winters shorten the hiking season.

From Mammoth Lakes, outings mean long drives along the highway below the Sierra. Bodie's ghost town and the Manzanar internment camp are well worth the drive, but there are few places like them, and in winter the mountain passes close.

Portland has more within easy reach. The Willamette Valley wine towns are under an hour away, Victorian Astoria sits at the mouth of the Columbia, Cannon Beach makes a coast day and Hood River has orchards. You will still need a car for most of them.

Both work for families, in different ways. Mammoth Lakes is an outdoor playground, with a ski school, gentle slopes and a tubing hill in winter, and rowing boats, trout fishing and the summit gondola in summer. There is nothing indoors when the weather turns, though, and the altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

Portland is the safer bet for bad days. It has the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, the zoo and Oaks Amusement Park, and the light rail is easy with a pushchair. The drawbacks are the wet winters and the visible homelessness in parts of downtown.

In Mammoth Lakes you can manage a ski stay without a car, thanks to the free winter shuttles and the gondola from the Village. A summer trolley and the Reds Meadow shuttle help too, but the town is spread out and you need to drive to see the Eastern Sierra. Portland is much easier, with short downtown blocks, the MAX light rail straight from the airport, a streetcar and good cycling across the bridges, and you only need a car for trips out of town.

Shopping in Mammoth Lakes means gear: ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, rental outlets and a few galleries of landscape photography. Portland can make shopping part of the trip, with Powell's City of Books, the vintage and record shops on Mississippi, Alberta and Hawthorne, the Saturday Market under the Burnside Bridge and no sales tax, though there is little luxury fashion.

Mammoth Lakes is costly in winter, when major-resort lift tickets, ski rental and peak-week lodging all add up. Summer hiking and shoulder-season rooms ease the bill, but even groceries carry resort-town prices.

Neither place is cheap, but Portland is easier on a budget. Hotels charge what they do in any large American city, but food carts, cheap transit, Forest Park and walks through the neighbourhoods keep daily spending down. Car hire for day trips is the main extra cost.

Mammoth Lakes has a community theatre on the college campus and, in summer, a jazz festival, chamber music and outdoor concerts in mountain meadows. These are pleasant but modest. Portland has the full range of institutions for its size, with the Oregon Symphony in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall plus opera, ballet and theatre seasons. On top of that, its indie and folk club circuit across the east side, including the historic Crystal Ballroom, means there is live music on any night.

Mammoth Lakes is the more restful of the two, mostly thanks to its volcanic ground. It has primitive hot springs out in the sagebrush with the Sierra across the valley, spas and hot tubs at the big lodges for tired legs, and quiet evenings outside the busiest ski weeks. Portland unwinds in a different way, through its gardens, forest trails and long café mornings. It has a few soaking houses in town, and its natural hot springs are about two hours' drive away in the Cascades.