Park City or Steamboat Springs?

Neither town is a place to swim, and the water is cold in both. What differs is the kind of water. Park City's nearest swimming is at Jordanelle Reservoir down the valley, with sandy swimming areas and picnic lawns. In Steamboat the summer ritual is tubing the Yampa River right through town, which is more a float than a swim.

Park City eats better. Ski money supports a cluster of polished kitchens on Main Street and at the resort bases, cooking elk, bison and trout with some ambition. When the menus start to repeat, Salt Lake City's restaurants are a short drive down the canyon.

Steamboat's cooking is plainer and heartier, shaped by the ranches of the Yampa Valley. Expect steakhouses, Colorado lamb, Mexican and pizza along Lincoln Avenue, plus a few breweries. Neither town has street food or a regional cuisine to seek out.

Each town takes about an afternoon to see, but the stories differ. Park City's is silver mining, which you can see in the headframes and tramway towers on the slopes and learn about in the Park City Museum, jail cells and all. The Olympic Park from the 2002 Winter Games adds ski and Olympic museums.

Steamboat's story is ranching and early skiing. You find it in the old storefronts on Lincoln Avenue, at the Tread of Pioneers Museum in its Victorian house, and on Howelsen Hill in the middle of town, one of the oldest ski areas on the continent.

Both towns go out early and turn in early, so the differences are small. Park City's Main Street has a bit more range, with cocktail bars and a few spots with DJs or bands, and it can get rowdy on winter weekends. Salt Lake City is close if you want a real night out.

Steamboat's evenings are more beer than cocktails: après-ski at the gondola base, then saloons and brewpubs on Lincoln Avenue. There is no club scene at all.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, and they differ more in style than in quality. Park City has two big ski areas rising straight from town, one of them among the largest in North America. Alta, Snowbird and the other Cottonwood resorts are within an hour, which suits skiers who want variety. In summer, lift-served singletrack leaves from the streets.

Steamboat has a single mountain known for its Champagne Powder and aspen tree skiing. Around it are night skiing at Howelsen Hill, backcountry at Rabbit Ears Pass and the alpine lakes of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness. Elk and moose sightings make it feel wilder.

Here Park City has much more to offer. Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the State Capitol, is about 40 minutes away. Closer in are the Heber Valley steam railway and the Swiss-style farm town of Midway, and Ogden's railroad-era street and the canyon road past Sundance fill other days.

Steamboat is genuinely remote. The nearby ranching hamlets are worth a coffee stop at most, and Vail and Denver are two to three hours of mountain driving away. From there, excursions mean the hills, not other towns.

Both towns are safe, easy and good for learning to ski. Park City has the edge. Free buses spare you the car seats, the Olympic Park has an alpine coaster, ziplines and freestyle skiers flipping into a pool, and Salt Lake City's zoo and aquarium are within an hour.

Steamboat's best family moments are simpler: the slides and climbing wall at Old Town Hot Springs, tubing the Yampa, and the summer rodeo. With nothing bigger within reach, it suits children who are happy outdoors. In both towns the altitude can tire young children for the first day or two.

Park City is easier without a car. Free buses link Old Town, both ski bases, the outlying lodging and Kimball Junction, and the airport is about 40 minutes away by shuttle. You only need a car for the valleys and the other ski areas.

Steamboat's bus covers the stretch between downtown and the ski base, and downtown itself is flat and easy to walk. But Strawberry Park, Fish Creek Falls and the lakes are all off the bus routes, so most visitors drive. Arrival is either through the small airport at Hayden or a long drive over the mountains from Denver.

Park City is the better place to shop. Main Street mixes art galleries, jewellers, upscale ski fashion and cowboy boots, and Kimball Junction adds an outlet centre and chain stores. Salt Lake City is close for anything bigger.

In Steamboat, shopping means an hour on Lincoln Avenue. The western-wear stores there, including a family outfitter that has been trading for over a century, sell hats, boots and saddle-blanket goods, and a few galleries and gear shops complete the picture.

Both are expensive resort towns, especially over Christmas and New Year. Steamboat is a little easier on the wallet, and in both, summer and autumn cost noticeably less than ski season. They differ in how you can save.

In Park City, many budget travellers stay in Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley and drive up. Steamboat has no cheaper base nearby, so the savings come from self-catering condos, free trails and travelling in spring or late autumn, when some places close.

The two are level, and both come alive mainly in summer. Park City has the Utah Symphony on the lawns at Deer Valley. Steamboat has the Strings Music Festival in its pavilion, mixing chamber music with jazz and bluegrass, and student theatre and dance at the long-running Perry-Mansfield camp.

The difference shows in the rest of the year. The 1920s Egyptian Theatre keeps Park City's programme going through the winter, and Salt Lake City has opera and ballet nearby. Steamboat's off-season offer comes down to a community orchestra and bands in the bars.

Steamboat is the better place to unwind, because the hot water there is natural. The town is named after one of its mineral springs. You can soak in spring-fed pools downtown, then drive up to Strawberry Park, where rock-lined pools sit in a wooded creek valley and a snowy evening there is hard to beat.

Park City's version is a resort spa or a hot tub after skiing, and the big lodges at Deer Valley do massages well. Its closest answer to Steamboat's springs is the Homestead Crater in Midway, a warm geothermal pool inside a limestone dome where you can swim or snorkel.