RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – The American Skiing Company, which owns Maine’s Sunday River and Sugarloaf/USA ski resorts, lost $21.7 million in the second quarter, nearly triple the loss it posted in the first quarter a year ago.

Through the first six months of its fiscal year, American Skiing lost a total of $63 million, compared to $37.6 million for the same period last year.

American Skiing, based in Park City, Utah, also reported a total debt of $642.8 million at the end of the quarter in January.

In its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, American Skiing said its financial results were affected by “extremely challenging weather conditions” in the East, with a 16 percent drop in skier visits at eastern resorts.

Overall, skier visits were down 10 percent through January at American Skiing’s seven resorts, declining from 1.7 million skier visits last year to 1.55 million this year.

“This included warmer-than-normal weather conditions in November which required us to delay planned opening dates, followed by alternating record snowfalls and record rains in early December, rain over Christmas – New Year’s holiday period, and unrelenting sub-zero temperatures and wind on weekends in January,” the company said in a report.

American Skiing has been in debt since embarking on an aggressive expansion plan under founder and former CEO Leslie Otten. Those expansion plans included resort acquisitions and real estate development.

The company said problems in the East were partially offset by a 2 percent increase in skier visits at its Western resorts. Total revenue (resort and real estate) was $102 million for the three-month period that ended in January – an increase of $2.6 million from the same quarter a year earlier. Through the first two quarters, revenue totaled $121.4 million compared to $121 million for the prior year.

American Skiing spokesman Erik Preusse said the large increase in the second-quarter loss can be attributed to a change in accounting standards.

“Our long-term focus for us is to improve our existing operations,” he said. “We address the debt issues as they approach and the initiatives are designed to improve our operations which put us in a favorable position to refinance debt.”

AP-ES-03-11-04 1118EST