Still others – and I suspect Lock may fit in this category – get tremendous satisfaction from coping well with a huge challenge".He has achieved six first Australian ascents of eight-thousanders, namely Dhaulagiri, Nanga Parbat, Hidden Peak, Manaslu, Annapurna, and Shishapangma.
He has made four solo ascents of eight-thousanders, namely Lhotse, Broad Peak, Shishapangma Central and Cho Oyu.
[11][8] His first 8,000-metre summit was of K2, which he climbed in 1993 with a small team that included legendary Himalayan climber Anatoli Boukreev, who later died in 1997 on Annapurna.
The "Savage Mountain" lived up to its fearsome reputation when three of his summit partners were killed in separate falls (on the same face), and Lock rescued a Swedish climber.
[14] Lock has climbed with several leading high-altitude Himalayan mountaineers, including Anatoli Boukreev (K2 in 1993), Göran Kropp (Broad Peak in 1994), Doug Scott and Wojciech Kurtyka (Nanga Parbat Mazeno Ridge in 1995), and Iván Vallejo & Iñaki Ochoa de Olza (Annapurna 2007).
[5] He continues to guide commercial expeditions to Mt Everest and other peaks in the Himalaya and around the world, specialising in small teams with high logistical support.