Mammoth Lakes or Telluride?

Neither town is a place to swim, but Mammoth Lakes at least offers a cold summer dip. Horseshoe Lake in the Lakes Basin is the usual spot in July and August, and Crowley Lake warms a little more. Telluride has nothing like it in town, and its nearest bathing is a reservoir near Ridgway, about an hour's drive away, so time on the water there means rafting or fishing instead.

Telluride eats noticeably better. A handful of serious kitchens on Colorado Avenue and up in Mountain Village cook with Colorado lamb, elk, trout and Western Slope produce, and the wine lists go deeper than you would expect.

Mammoth Lakes serves plainer ski-town food: hearty breakfasts, burgers, tacos and steakhouses, with beer brewed in town as its best local touch. Neither has markets or a cuisine of its own, and in both a long stay means going back to the same few places.

Telluride has a town worth looking at. Its grid of clapboard houses and false-fronted storefronts from the mining boom has survived almost intact, and there is also the museum in the old miners' hospital, the Sheridan Opera House and mill ruins clinging to the canyon walls. It fills an afternoon rather than a trip.

Mammoth Lakes has less to show: modern lodges and condominiums, the pedestrian Village and a small history museum in a log cabin. The area's real heritage, such as Bodie and Manzanar, lies an hour or more away.

Both towns go out for après-ski and go quiet early, and neither has clubs. The difference is the setting. In Mammoth Lakes the drinking happens in bars near the lifts and in brewery taprooms. Telluride has historic saloons with Victorian back rooms on Colorado Avenue, and on its summer festival weekends the main street stays up later than Mammoth usually does outside the ski season.

Both are excellent mountain bases, so the choice comes down to the kind of landscape. Mammoth Lakes has a huge ski area whose season often runs into early summer, a lift-served bike park, the granite-ringed lakes of the Lakes Basin and Devils Postpile. It also has the volcanic sights of Mono Lake and Hot Creek, and Tuolumne Meadows is within reach once Tioga Pass opens.

Telluride is more dramatic at close range. Peaks above 4,000m rise from the end of the main street, and Bridal Veil Falls is within walking distance. Summer adds a via ferrata, wildflower basins and old mining roads over Imogene Pass, while in winter the skiing offers steep hike-to terrain and outstanding views.

From Mammoth Lakes the outings are to sites rather than towns. Most run along the highway below the Sierra. Bodie, a little over an hour north, is a gold-rush settlement long abandoned and kept in arrested decay. Manzanar, to the south, tells the story of Second World War internment soberly and well. June Lake and Lee Vining on the shore of Mono Lake are short hops, and Bishop has a railway museum close by. Yosemite Valley is too far for a comfortable day.

From Telluride the mining past is still lived in. Ridgway, a ranching town, is under an hour away, Ouray sits in its narrow canyon, and Silverton, at the end of the narrow-gauge line from Durango, is reached over Red Mountain Pass. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings are the one site of real stature, but they stretch a day to its limit. In both places the shorter trips are easy, while the best ones take an hour or more each way, and in winter mountain passes can slow or close the roads.

Mammoth Lakes does more for children. As well as a large ski school, it has a snow tubing hill for the youngest. In summer there are rowing boats, trout fishing, the bike park and the gondola to the summit, and condominium kitchens make day-to-day life easier.

Telluride works for active families, with gentle slopes by Mountain Village, waterfall walks and a free gondola that children enjoy as a ride in itself. Still, there is less to fill the days, and the costs are harder to bear. In both towns the altitude can unsettle young children at first, and wet days leave little to do indoors.

Telluride is much easier on foot. You can cross the historic grid in a quarter of an hour, and a free gondola and buses link it with Mountain Village, so many visitors never drive during their stay. Getting there is the hard part, with a small airport often hit by weather and long road transfers from the larger ones.

Mammoth Lakes is spread out along a few main roads. Winter shuttles and the Village gondola make a ski week possible without a car, and in summer a trolley and the Reds Meadow shuttle help, but exploring the wider Eastern Sierra really needs one.

Telluride gives you more to browse: a few blocks of Colorado Avenue with art galleries, Western clothing and jewellery boutiques and good bookshops, plus resort boutiques in Mountain Village. Mammoth Lakes is mostly about gear, with ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, galleries of landscape photography and souvenirs around the Village. Neither is a place to plan a shopping trip around.

Mammoth Lakes is expensive, but Telluride costs far more. Its scarce rooms are priced for wealthy second-home owners, and festival weekends and the Christmas weeks push them higher still.

In Mammoth, summer is the easier season, when hiking and lake days cost little and cooking in a condominium keeps meal costs down. In Telluride the main savings are the free gondola and buses, or staying in Ridgway and driving in each day.

Telluride has a real summer music reputation. The Bluegrass Festival in Town Park, beneath the canyon walls, is one of the best known in its genre. Jazz, blues and chamber music festivals and the film festival fill out the summer, and the Sheridan Opera House hosts shows all year.

Mammoth Lakes has a smaller stage: a community theatre company on the college campus, a long-running summer jazz festival, chamber music and concerts in a meadow. It makes for a pleasant evening out, but it is not a reason to plan your dates.

Mammoth Lakes has its hot springs nearby, and they are wild. These are simple, undeveloped pools out in the sagebrush, reached by dirt road, with the Sierra across the valley, and they can get crowded at sunset. Telluride has no bathing culture in town, so a soak means about an hour's drive to the large public pool in Ouray or the clothing-optional springs near Ridgway. Those springs are more developed, but each visit is an outing of its own.

Back in town, hotel spas take care of tired legs in both places, in Telluride's case up in Mountain Village. Outside the peak weeks, either town is a quiet place to unwind, though Telluride's extra altitude leaves some visitors sleeping badly for the first few nights.