Mount Rainier or Yosemite?

Swimming is a sideshow in both places, but Yosemite offers clearly more of it. In late summer the Merced River slows into pools and sandbars on the Valley floor. Tenaya Lake has a real sandy shore, and Bass Lake south of the park feels like a summer lake resort. The warm, dry Sierra summers help too.

At Mount Rainier the snowmelt lakes such as Reflection Lakes are for looking at or a quick paddle. A proper swim means driving down to a lowland reservoir like Alder Lake near Elbe.

Both are places where you eat to fuel up for the trail, and neither is worth visiting for its food. The difference is in the setting. Rainier's meals are in the dining rooms of Paradise and Longmire or at roadside diners and brewpubs in Ashford and Packwood. Yosemite has the grand historic dining room in the Valley, and its gateway towns add Mexican cooking, barbecue and Sierra foothill wine. In both, a picnic at the trailhead often beats the restaurants.

Neither is a culture trip, but Mount Rainier's built heritage carries a little more weight. Longmire keeps the original park headquarters and the stone-and-timber buildings that set the style for American park architecture. Paradise Inn's beamed lobby is worth a stop even if you are not staying, and fire lookouts stand on the ridges.

Yosemite's man-made sights are smaller set pieces: the Valley's grand hotel and 1870s chapel, the Yosemite Museum's Miwok basketry, and the stagecoach-era buildings at Wawona. Each takes an hour or two.

After dark, both are equally quiet. At Rainier it is a beer at a tavern in Ashford or Packwood and then a campfire. At Yosemite it is a lounge drink in a lodge or a saloon in a gateway town. In both, the best evening entertainment is the stars.

These are two of the finest mountain parks in America, with Yosemite a shade ahead for sheer drama. The Valley's thousand-metre granite walls, its spring waterfalls, Half Dome's cable route, the sequoias of Mariposa Grove and the domes of Tuolumne Meadows make it a place of rock and falling water, and a world centre for big-wall climbing.

Rainier's appeal is one huge glaciated peak and its changing belts of life: old-growth cedar along the Ohanapecosh, mossy rainforest in the Carbon River valley, and flowering meadows below the Emmons Glacier. It also suits a different kind of ambition, from the Wonderland Trail to a guided summit climb, and it has more winter terrain, with lift skiing at Crystal Mountain and White Pass.

Day trips are a side matter in both, and the main difference is what kind of outing you get. From Rainier you head into the city: Tacoma's waterfront museums, including a glass museum with a working hot shop, or Olympia's domed capitol, with Seattle at the far edge of a day.

Yosemite's outings look back to the Old West. There is Columbia's gold-rush main street, the railway yard at Jamestown, wineries around Murphys, and in summer the ghost town of Bodie beyond Tioga Pass. Winter cuts off the eastern side.

For outdoor families the two are about equal, with Junior Ranger programmes, plenty of wildlife and nothing built specifically for children. Rainier's strengths are short, varied walks, like the homestead cabins on Trail of the Shadows or the roaring slot at Box Canyon, plus snow at Paradise into early summer. Outside the park there are extras: the bison and wolves at Northwest Trek and the steam railway from Elbe.

Yosemite's flat Valley floor, with paved bike paths, meadows and an easy walk to Lower Yosemite Fall, is easier for small children to get around. The giant sequoias impress every age. On the other hand, cliff edges, fast spring rivers and bears there need closer supervision.

Both are long, winding drives, but the details differ. At Rainier you need a car for everything. Paradise and Sunrise are about two hours apart, so it makes sense to base yourself on the side you plan to explore.

Yosemite has one car-free option. A regional bus from Merced's train station reaches the Valley, and free shuttles and bike paths cover the Valley floor. Glacier Point, Mariposa Grove and Tuolumne still mean driving, and Tioga Road shuts for much of the year, much like Rainier's eastern roads.

At Mount Rainier, shopping stops at park gift shops, general stores and a few craft and gallery shops in the gateway towns, so pick up outdoor gear in Seattle or Tacoma on the way in. Yosemite is much the same, with one thing worth a look: a long-standing gallery in the Valley that sells fine-art landscape prints in the tradition of Ansel Adams.

Mount Rainier is the cheaper of the two. Rooms are scarce and in demand in July and August, but cabins and motels in the gateway towns cost less than Yosemite's. The shoulder months bring real savings, and park and national forest campgrounds are easy ways to stay cheaply.

Yosemite's few in-park rooms sell out early at high prices, gateway motels charge peak rates all summer, and food inside the park costs too much for what it is. Its campsites are very cheap but hard to book, so the best ways to save are a winter visit or a base lower in the foothills.

At both Mount Rainier and Yosemite, an evening's entertainment is a ranger talk at the campground, and neither has a stage worth planning a trip around. The difference lies beyond the park gates. Rainier's gateway towns offer nothing more, so a play or a concert means heading back to Tacoma or Seattle. Yosemite's foothill side has a small repertory theatre in Sonora and summer concerts, which fit easily into a day out in the Gold Country.

Neither is a spa destination, and the rest they offer is of different kinds. Rainier's is plain quiet: a cabin under the firs near Ashford or Packwood, no phone signal and a river outside. The Ohanapecosh hot springs are only something to look at.

Yosemite has the actual soaking, in resort spas near the southern entrance and open-air hot springs around Bridgeport and Mammoth Lakes in summer. But the Valley in July is too busy to feel restful, so to find calm you need to go up to the high country or come in winter.