Today, after a cold and uncomfortable night in Camp III, Lina and I awoke, waited a bit for the sun to arrive to the tent, then broke down camp and began descending toward Base Camp. We finally met again in Camp I where we waited for other climbers to begin descending to avoid rockfall danger. We continued our descent until we were greeted by Ibrahim and Manzoor at the deposit. They congratulated us, took our backpacks from us to our profound relief, and walked with us the last hour to Base Camp. We arrived, ate a quick dinner, which was followed by a very unpleasant conversation initiated by our Liaison officer. He decided to take the opportunity to argue over our choice to descend via Gondogoro La. Apparently, while we were up on the mountain, other officers in K2 and Broad Peak base camps had convinced him of the danger of descending via the pass. Exhausted after descending from 8047m to 4800m, we were in no mood to debate the route of return. Disheartened, I returned to my tent, exhausted, burned, and sore from the huge effort that I had exerted over the past few days. I unpacked my equipment from my backpack and finally went to sleep.