also a "hard 9a", and that the roof was at . Bouin said: "Anyway this route is hard", "and quite unbelievable for the 90's". Rouhling was disappointed at the downgrade and felt that the requirement to hang from a pinch hold in the roof at the first crux, while familiar in contemporary extreme routes, was novel in 1995, and was why no climber of his generation could send the route. In 2021, the climbing database 8a.nu agreed that changes in equipment and techniques for roof climbing could explain much of the downgrade. In 2022, climbing author Sam Anderson attributed some of the vilification of Rouhling to the fact that at the time, he was not considered "the world's best climber", and thus would not be accepted as the person who climbed "the world's hardest route". Return to climbing After Akira, Rouhling's wife Celine needed brain surgery for a life-threatening illness, and Rouhling largely abandoned extreme climbing for a number of years to focus on his family and young children. In 2001, on his wife's recovery, Rouhling repeated Fred Nicole's , that – after Fred's brother François – was the second-ever repeat of a 9a-graded route in history. In 2002 and 2003, Rouhling visited Switzerland's leading bouldering areas repeating several of Fred Nicole's most notable problems including several up to (e.g. Eau Profonde), and one at , with E la nave va. In 2004, Rouhling established his fourth route above 9a with Mandallaz Drive at , and in 2007 he added a fifth with Salamandre at . Rouhling did not use any chipping to create these new routes, they were natural. In 2007 Rouhling went on bouldering trips with French climber Romain Desgranges to Rocklands, South Africa and to Joshua Tree, California. In 2010, the pair went on a bouldering trip to New Zealand where Rouhling repeated Chris Sharma's 2005 problem, Archilles last stand , which was Rouhling's 100th boulder ascent above . In 2009, one of the main online databases for extreme rock climbers, 8a.nu, asked the question "Is Fred Rouhling the best ever FA [first ascent] climber in the world?", noting that Rouhling's combination of first ascents for the hardest sport climbs and hard bouldering routes ranked him #3 in their All-Time High Combined rankings. In a 2021 interview, Rouhling said that he then only climbed a few times a year and that while as a climber, he was