Whitefish or Winter Park, Colorado?

Whitefish at least gives you somewhere to swim. City Beach on Whitefish Lake has sand, a dock and plenty of paddleboarders, and the pebbly state park shores of Flathead Lake are about forty minutes away. The water is only comfortable from mid-July to late August.

Winter Park's water, at Grand Lake and the Granby reservoirs, stays cold with snowmelt even in July and is used for boating rather than swimming. The water you'll actually get into there is a hotel pool or a hot spring.

Both serve hearty mountain-town food, but Whitefish has a bit more character. Huckleberries in pies, milkshakes and cocktails give it a local signature, and Central Avenue puts grills, a few more ambitious dining rooms and craft breweries along one walkable street.

Winter Park's cooking has more of a Southwestern touch, with green chile and breakfast burritos before the lifts open. But its restaurants are spread along the highway and among the slopeside lodges, and there is no dish worth travelling for. In both towns a week means going back to the same few places.

Neither town is a place for sightseeing, and there is little to choose between them. Whitefish has the timber-framed Great Northern depot, with its railway and logging museum, and some early twentieth-century shopfronts downtown. Winter Park's heritage is the Moffat Tunnel, a ski area opened by Denver in the late 1930s and the homesteading museum in Fraser, but Denver's museums are close enough for a day out.

Whitefish has the livelier evenings. Its saloons on Central Avenue, with wooden bars, pool tables and a mix of ranchers and ski bums, stay busy all year, and the patios fill on summer nights.

In Winter Park, going out mostly means après-ski at the base village. The crowd is largely families and skiers getting up early for the first lift, so the town goes quiet early, especially in summer. Neither town has clubs.

Both are superb mountain bases, so the choice depends on the season and the sport. Whitefish's great asset is Glacier National Park, with the Highline Trail, Grinnell Glacier, the Going-to-the-Sun Road and grizzlies, plus lake paddling and fly fishing close to town. The catch is that the high country is reliably open only from July to September.

Winter Park leans more towards skiing and riding. The linked mountains of Winter Park and Mary Jane offer a season that often lasts into spring, and in summer the lift-served bike park and the singletrack around Fraser draw riders. The moose and high tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park are about an hour north.

Winter Park has more places to drive to. The brick mining-era streets of Georgetown and Idaho Springs, with their narrow-gauge railway, are about an hour away over Berthoud Pass, and Grand Lake has its old boardwalk. Denver and Boulder put big-city museums within reach for a day, as long as the pass is clear.

The outings from Whitefish are smaller: the Conrad Mansion in Kalispell, Bigfork's galleries and summer theatre, the cherry orchards along Flathead Lake and the mission church at St Ignatius. Most days out from Whitefish head into the park instead.

Winter Park is built around families in a way Whitefish is not. The large children's ski school, learning slopes, tubing, sleigh rides and skating are all within a compact village, and summer adds mini golf and climbing walls. The catch is the altitude, which can spoil the first night or two.

Whitefish works well for children who love being outdoors, with a zip line and alpine slide on the mountain, calm water at City Beach and the flat Trail of the Cedars. It is harder going for younger or less sporty children, because the drives are longer and there is little to do besides outdoor sports.

Winter Park lets you get through a ski week without a car. A free shuttle links the base, the town and Fraser, and the base village is walkable. Lodgings strung out along the highway and the drive over Berthoud Pass are the drawbacks.

Whitefish has the nicer downtown to stroll, and long-distance trains stop right at the depot, which is unusual for a mountain town. Beyond the winter ski shuttle, though, you will almost certainly need a car for Glacier, Flathead Lake and the trailheads.

Whitefish is the better place for an afternoon's browsing, with western-wear and boot shops, wildlife and landscape galleries and Montana-made gifts alongside the outdoor outfitters on Central Avenue. Winter Park's shops are about rentals, tuning, bikes and gear, and are mostly useful when you've forgotten something. For bigger stores, Whitefish has Kalispell nearby, while from Winter Park you have to go to Denver.

Both are expensive resort towns, with little to separate them overall. In Whitefish the cost comes from scarce rooms in peak weeks and the hire car most visitors need, which you can ease by staying in Kalispell or Columbia Falls. In Winter Park it comes from lift tickets, rentals and lessons, which you can ease with a condo with a kitchen in Fraser, and summer there is much cheaper, while Whitefish is easiest on the budget in spring and autumn.

Whitefish has more on stage than its size suggests: a community performing arts centre, a professional summer theatre company, and the valley's symphony orchestra with its summer festival in nearby Kalispell. Winter Park has no theatre or concert hall. Beyond free summer concerts in the town park and bands in après-ski bars, a night out at a performance there means going to Denver.

Winter Park is the better place to unwind after a day outside. Most condos and lodges have hot tubs, and Hot Sulphur Springs, about half an hour away, has mineral pools stepping down a hillside above the Colorado River.

Whitefish offers lodge and resort spas, yoga studios and calm lakeside mornings. Its nearest hot springs are a couple of hours' drive away, though, so a proper soak takes some planning.