Mammoth Lakes or Taos?

Neither town is anywhere near a coast, but Mammoth Lakes at least gives you somewhere to swim in July and August. Horseshoe Lake and the lower, slightly warmer Crowley Lake take a brave summer dip, though the water stays cold.

Taos has no real equivalent. The Rio Grande is for rafting and the alpine lakes are colder still, so the nearest thing to swimming is a hotel pool or a hot spring.

Taos has a cuisine of its own, and Mammoth Lakes doesn't. In Taos that means red and green chile, posole, carne adovada and blue corn, served at old family-run places around the plaza and on the road to Ranchos, plus horno bread from the Pueblo.

Mammoth Lakes feeds a big ski crowd well enough with breakfasts, burgers, steakhouses and craft beer brewed in town, but it's food to refuel on rather than a reason to come.

The gap is wide here. Taos has a UNESCO World Heritage site that people still live in: Taos Pueblo, with its stacked adobe houses below the Sangre de Cristo. Add the buttressed San Francisco de Asís church, the Fechin House, the Kit Carson home and the art-colony collections, and you have two or three full days of sights.

Mammoth Lakes grew from a mining camp into a ski resort, and it shows. The town is mostly lodges and condominiums, and the small history museum is about all there is. Its real heritage, Bodie and Manzanar, is an hour or more away.

Both are early-to-bed mountain towns with no clubs. Mammoth Lakes has a bit more life in ski season, when the Village and the bars by the lifts fill for après-ski and long weekends can run late. Taos evenings are quieter: a margarita in an adobe hotel bar, a taproom or a saloon band, and most nights are over soon after dinner.

Mammoth Lakes has more country within easy reach. This is granite and volcanic Sierra: sheer peaks above Convict Lake, the tufa towers of Mono Lake, the June Lake Loop and trails heading straight into the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses. In summer Tioga Pass opens, putting Tuolumne Meadows in the Yosemite high country about an hour away, so one week can take in alpine water, volcanic oddities and one of America's great parks.

Taos is drier and more open: a sagebrush plateau split by the deep Rio Grande gorge. Its big draws are rafting the Taos Box in spring, mountain biking on the West Rim and the steep, demanding runs at Taos Ski Valley, which suit confident skiers. Wheeler Peak, at 4,013m, makes a serious summit day, and the Enchanted Circle loops through forest and high valleys. The variety close to town is narrower, though, and the skies and the light do much of the work.

Taos has far better outings. Santa Fe is within an easy day, especially by the High Road through Truchas, Las Trampas and Chimayó, and Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch take you into O'Keeffe's landscapes.

From Mammoth Lakes the options are fewer and farther apart along the highway: Bodie's ghost town to the north, Manzanar and Bishop to the south. In winter the passes close, so most days out from Mammoth Lakes head into the mountains rather than to other towns.

Mammoth Lakes is the easier choice with children. It has a big ski school, gentle beginner slopes, a snow tubing hill, rowing boats and trout fishing in the Lakes Basin, and the summit gondola. Condominiums with kitchens make daily life simpler.

Taos offers gentle float trips, horse riding and a recreation centre pool, but its museums are small art collections and every outing involves the car. Neither town has much for a day stuck indoors.

You'll need a car in both, but less often in Mammoth Lakes. In winter free shuttles and the Village gondola make a ski week possible without driving, and in summer a trolley and the Reds Meadow shuttle cover the main spots.

In Taos only the area around the plaza is walkable. The Pueblo, the gorge bridge, the ski valley and Santa Fe all need your own wheels, and most visitors start with a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Albuquerque.

In Taos, shopping is part of the visit. Galleries line the lanes off the plaza and Kit Carson Road, and turquoise jewellery, Pueblo pottery, Rio Grande weaving and carved santos are made locally. You can also buy directly from makers at the Pueblo.

Mammoth Lakes is for buying gear: good ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, a few landscape photography galleries and souvenirs around the Village.

Neither is cheap, but Mammoth Lakes is the bigger strain on a budget. Major-resort lift tickets, peak-week lodging and resort-priced groceries add up fast in winter, and summer, when the hiking and lakes cost little, is the easier season.

Taos has simple motels and fairly priced New Mexican diners alongside its pricier inns. The hire car you almost certainly need is the main extra cost there.

The feast-day dances at Taos Pueblo are the one performance here worth planning a trip around, and Mammoth Lakes has nothing like them. What Mammoth Lakes does have is a community theatre company on the college campus, plus a summer jazz festival and chamber concerts held outdoors with the peaks behind. It's pleasant, but small and local.

In Taos the public may watch the dances on San Gerónimo in late September and around Christmas, under strict rules and with no photography. A summer chamber music festival and a small community arts centre fill in the rest of the year.

Ojo Caliente, a historic resort with outdoor pools fed by several different mineral waters, gives Taos the proper bathing that Mammoth Lakes lacks. Mammoth's hot springs are undeveloped pools out in the sagebrush at the end of dirt roads, with no facilities and crowds at sunset. Its hotel spas and hot tubs mostly serve skiers' tired legs.

Ojo Caliente is about fifty minutes from Taos. Closer to town, primitive springs sit at the bottom of the gorge, reached on foot and best in the cooler months. The town also has yoga studios, retreat centres and the silence of the plateau.