After making 16 trips to the highest point on the planet working as a guide, Apa Sherpa is still adjusting to climbing on his own time.

Apa made it to the top of Mount Everest again last week, breaking his own world record with an 18th summit of the 29,035-foot Himalayan peak.

"We got there too early. It was still a little cold [around minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit]," Apa told The Salt Lake Tribune by telephone from Katmandu late Tuesday.

Apa left Everest's Camp 4 (25,940-feet) with Ang Mingma Sherpa, a support climber, at 9:30 p.m. May 21, and made it to the summit at 5:45 a.m. May 22. He called his wife and three children in Draper to let them know he had made it to the top, again.

The world record holder for Everest summits - the next closest is another Sherpa who made his 16th trip to the top this spring - has used oxygen on 14 of his 18 summits, including the most recent.

Apa, who moved his family to the Salt Lake Valley in December 2006 in search of a better education for his children, is fond of saying that getting up Everest is the easy part; dealing with the impacts of altitude, physical exhaustion and sleep deprivation on the way down is the most dangerous part.

Apa and Ang Mingma planned their early departure from Camp 4 hoping to avoid a dangerous bottleneck of climbers on the way up. They succeeded, but ended up waiting at the famous Hillary Step for about an hour during the descent while climbers made their way up the fixed ropes at the most technical part of the summit.

"We tried to beat the traffic jam. It worked on the way up, but we got caught on the way down," he said.

Apa heard that more than 75 climbers made it to the summit that day; he was glad to have been the first. After making it past the Hillary Step, he and Ang Mingma quickly descended to the safety of Camp 2 where they rested before returning to base camp.

Overall, Apa spent only eight days on Everest. He waited in his home village of Thame for the mountain to open above Camp 2 during a climbing and communication restriction enforced while the Chinese government worked to get the Olympic torch to the top of the mountain.

While he said he again felt an incredible sense of pride upon reaching the top, Apa said he also is proud to be one of the first climbers to pack out his own waste. As part of the Eco Everest Expedition, Apa was committed to removing his waste and trash, including oxygen bottles and other gear.

"It is required that human waste is hauled from base camp, but we were the first to do it for the rest of the mountain," he said. "It was not a hard thing to do. Our hope is that everybody will haul it down in the future because there is only one Everest."

Apa made his first summit of Everest - while not acting as a guide - last year when he climbed with Lhakpa Gelu Sherpa as part of the Super- Sherpas Expedition.

Asked if he had given any thought to No. 19, Apa laughed and gave his standard reply.

"That is a tough question. We will see, the mountain is always there," he said. "I need to talk to my family about it."

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* BRETT PRETTYMAN can be contacted at brettp@sltrib.com or 801-257-8902.