Salt Lake City or Telluride?

Neither city is a swimming destination, but Salt Lake City at least gives you water to get into. You can float in the brine of the Great Salt Lake once for the novelty. On hot summer days the Wasatch reservoirs, such as Jordanelle and Pineview, have sandy patches of shore, paddleboards and boats.

Telluride's nearest swimming is a small reservoir area near Ridgway, about an hour away, and the mountain water stays cool even in midsummer. Summer water time there usually means rafting, paddling or fishing.

Both eat reasonably well without being worth a trip for the food, but in opposite ways. Salt Lake City has range. Mexican, Pacific Islander, Peruvian and Vietnamese kitchens line State Street, and there are local oddities like fry sauce and dirty sodas, plus breweries in Sugar House. Wine and cocktails are thin, though.

Telluride has a small circle of polished kitchens on Colorado Avenue and in Mountain Village, cooking Colorado elk, lamb and trout and pouring from deeper wine lists. There is no cheap street food, and a week there soon feels repetitive.

Salt Lake City has far more to see. Temple Square alone fills a morning, with the granite Temple, the domed Tabernacle and its organ, and the Family History Library close by. The State Capitol, the painted Cathedral of the Madeleine and the dinosaur halls of the Natural History Museum fill out two full days.

In Telluride the culture is the preserved mining town itself, a National Historic Landmark district of clapboard houses and false-fronted stores. Add the historical museum in the old miners' hospital and the ruined mills on the canyon walls, and you have a pleasant hour or two rather than a programme.

Neither city is a place for big nights out, but Salt Lake City has more choice: bars and a few dance clubs downtown and in the Granary District, a long-standing gay scene and the pubs of Sugar House, all within Utah's liquor rules. Telluride has après-ski and a few Victorian saloons on Colorado Avenue that stay busy late only in peak ski weeks and on festival weekends, and it has no clubs.

Both are superb, and the difference lies in how the mountains sit. Salt Lake City is a base beneath the Wasatch. Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude, famous for dry powder, are less than an hour up the canyons, and foothill trails start above the Avenues. To the west is a completely different landscape of bison on Antelope Island and the white Bonneville Salt Flats.

In Telluride you are already inside the mountains. Cliffs, Bridal Veil Falls and the trail to Blue Lake begin from the edge of town, and the ski runs rise straight above it. There is also a via ferrata, jeep roads over the old mining passes and golden aspens in autumn, but the altitude takes a day or two to get used to.

Neither is a strong base for day trips, and both rely on old mining towns. From Salt Lake City, Park City's Victorian Main Street is about forty minutes away on good roads, and Midway and Ogden's 25th Street are close too. The famous national parks are too far for a day.

From Telluride, Ridgway, Ouray and Silverton are reached on mountain roads that winter can slow or close. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings are the one major heritage site within reach, but they are a long two and a half hours each way.

Salt Lake City is by far the better choice for families. Hogle Zoo, the Living Planet Aquarium, Discovery Gateway, the Clark Planetarium and the coasters at Lagoon can fill a week, and the city is used to large families. You will need a car to link it all.

Telluride suits active families who will ski, ride the free gondola and walk to the waterfalls. It has nothing indoors for a wet day, though, and the altitude can disturb young children's sleep for the first nights.

Once you have arrived, Telluride is much easier. You can cross the historic grid on foot in a quarter of an hour, and the free gondola and buses reach Mountain Village and the slopes, so many visitors never use their car during the stay. The catch is getting there: the larger airports are one to two hours away, and weather often disrupts the small local one.

Salt Lake City is simple to reach, with TRAX light rail running from the airport. Once you are there, though, the long blocks and sprawling valley make a hire car close to essential for the zoo, the canyons and the nearby towns.

Salt Lake City has more useful shopping: department stores at City Creek Center, shops in the old streetcar barns of Trolley Square, and independent and vintage shops around 9th and 9th and in Sugar House. Telluride has a few expensive blocks of galleries, Western boutiques and bookshops on Colorado Avenue. Both are excellent for ski and outdoor gear, and neither is worth a trip just to shop.

The gap between the two is widest in winter. On a ski week from Salt Lake City you can sleep in a downtown hotel at ordinary city rates and drive up the canyons each day, so the lift tickets, ski hire and car are the main costs. In Telluride every part of the same week, from the bed to the dinners to the lift pass, sits at the luxury end.

Summer narrows the difference without closing it. A hiking week from Salt Lake City is inexpensive, helped by Temple Square's free sights and the trails above the Avenues. Telluride's rooms stay costly, most of all on festival weekends. Sleeping down the valley in Ridgway is the main way to cut the bill, but it adds a drive each way.

Salt Lake City has a year-round programme that Telluride cannot match. It has the Tabernacle Choir and daily organ recitals at Temple Square, the Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall, Utah Opera, Ballet West and touring Broadway shows at the Eccles Theater.

Telluride's music comes mostly in summer, when the Bluegrass Festival in Town Park, festivals of jazz, blues and chamber music, and the Labor Day film festival fill the town. Outside that calendar there are only a few shows a week.

Telluride is the slightly better place to unwind. The town is calm, especially in spring and late autumn, the Mountain Village hotels have full spas, and the public hot springs pool in Ouray and the springs near Ridgway are about an hour away. The altitude can make the first nights restless, though.

Salt Lake City's standout is a soak in warm mineral water inside the limestone dome of the Homestead Crater in Midway, with resort spas in Park City as a backup. Rest happens along the way here rather than being the reason to come.