Dry-tooling

Dry-tooling (or drytooling) is a form of mixed climbing that is performed on bare, ice-free, and snow-free, routes.

Many indoor ice climbing competitions are held on non-ice surfaces and are effectively dry-tooling events.

Some of the most extreme mixed climbing routes now quote a D-grade alongside the M-grade to signify whether there was any ice encountered (i.e. Iron Man in Switzerland is graded M14+/D14+).

[2] In 2010, French climbers, including Jeff Mercier [fr], introduced Dry Tooling Style (DTS), restricting equipment use and prohibiting figure-four and figure-nine moves (also called a "yaniro").

[3][10] The equipment used in dry-tooling is the same as is used in mixed climbing, including fruit boots, mono points, heel spurs, and advanced ice axes.

These include:[11] In addition, dry-tooling climbers try to keep their elbows near their sides (i.e. to avoid draining energy in torque and stein pulls),[11] and are very careful in extracting wedged blades (i.e. which can ricochet back into the climber's face), and of gently balancing the front points of their crampons on thin holds.