Taos or Vail?

Neither has anything to offer here: both sit high in the mountains, hundreds of kilometres from the sea, and the lakes stay cold all summer. The difference lies in how you cool off. Taos has a hot spring soak or rafting on the Rio Grande, while Vail has a hotel pool or a paddle on a nearby reservoir.

The two are broadly level, but they feed you in quite different ways. Taos has a real regional cuisine: red and green chile, posole, carne adovada and blue corn, served by old family places around the plaza and towards Ranchos, plus horno bread from the Pueblo.

Vail has no cooking of its own and no cheap end, but its restaurants in Vail Village and Lionshead are polished, with fondue, sushi, game and long wine lists, and on-mountain lunches between runs. Choose Taos to eat something local, Vail for resort dining.

Here Taos is far ahead. Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage site still lived in by a Tiwa-speaking community, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the United States, and the buttressed church at Ranchos, the Millicent Rogers and Harwood museums and the old homes of the art colony fill two or three unhurried days.

Vail dates only from the 1960s, and its Tyrolean-style village is an imitation rather than a survival. The Colorado Snowsports Museum and its story of the Tenth Mountain Division are worth an hour, and that is about it.

Neither is a place for a big night out, but Vail has more going on. Après-ski fills slopeside terraces as the lifts close, and on winter weekends a few bars and a small club stay open past midnight, though off-season evenings go very quiet.

Taos ends most nights soon after dinner, with a margarita in an adobe hotel bar, a brewery taproom or a saloon band.

Both are serious mountain bases, but Vail has the edge for sheer scale. Its ski area runs from groomed front-side slopes to the Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin, and in summer gondolas lift hikers and bikers into terrain bordering the Gore Range and Holy Cross wilderness, with fly fishing on Gore Creek.

Taos offers a more varied landscape: steep, demanding skiing at Taos Ski Valley, the trail up Wheeler Peak, and the Rio Grande gorge with rafting through the Taos Box and rim walks across the sagebrush plateau. It is less a ski machine and more a meeting of desert and mountain.

Taos has the better range of outings. The High Road to Santa Fe passes Truchas, Las Trampas and the sanctuary at Chimayó, and Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch lead into O'Keeffe country, so each trip adds history and art as well as scenery.

From Vail most drives lead to other resorts, Beaver Creek and Breckenridge among them, with Leadville's mining past and the hot pools at Glenwood Springs as the most distinctive days out. Both need a car.

Vail is the easier choice with children. Its ski schools are large, the village is car-free and safe to wander, and in summer the gondola top has tubing, ropes courses and a mountain coaster.

Taos welcomes children and has a good ski school, float trips and horse riding, but nothing is built specifically for them and every outing means time in the car. In both, the altitude can tire young children for the first days.

Vail is much easier on the ground. Vail Village and Lionshead are pedestrian, lifts start from town and a free bus runs the length of the valley, so many visitors manage a week without a car, even if reaching the town takes a shuttle.

Taos has only a walkable plaza area and a basic bus. The Pueblo, the gorge, the ski valley and the villages are spread across a wide valley, and the drive from Albuquerque makes a hire car almost unavoidable.

Both are narrow, galleries-and-jewellery towns, with Taos slightly the more rewarding. Its strength is craft with roots: Pueblo micaceous pottery, Rio Grande weaving, carved santos and turquoise, some bought straight from the maker.

Vail sells upmarket ski clothing, furs, Western boots and mountain landscapes to a wealthy clientele, better for new ski gear than for anything made locally.

Taos is the far gentler bill. It costs what a small American mountain town costs, with fair motels and diners alongside pricier historic inns, though the hire car adds to the total.

Vail sits at the top end of North American vacations, with lift tickets, slopeside lodging, ski school and meals all well above normal levels. Staying down the valley or coming in summer helps, but only a little.

Vail has the stronger programme, but only in summer. Bravo! Vail brings orchestras in residence to the open-air Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, and the dance and jazz festivals bring serious performers for July and August.

Taos has a summer chamber music festival and a small arts centre, but its most memorable performances are the traditional dances at Taos Pueblo on feast days such as San Gerónimo, watched quietly and without cameras.

Taos is the better place to unwind. Ojo Caliente, about fifty minutes away, offers outdoor pools fed by several mineral waters, there are primitive springs beside the Rio Grande at the bottom of the gorge, and the town has a long tradition of yoga and retreat centres.

Vail's wellness is the hotel kind: polished spas, saunas and hot tubs under the peaks after a day of skiing. For natural springs you drive an hour to Glenwood Springs.