Dry-tooling (or drytooling) is a form of mixed climbing that is performed on bare, ice-free, and snow-free, climbing routes. As with mixed-climbing, the dry-tooling climber uses a pair of ice tools and wears crampons to ascend the route. They will use normal rock climbing equipment for their protection on the route; many modern dry-tooling routes are now fully bolted as with sport climbing rock-climbing routes. Many indoor ice climbing competitions are held on bare non-iced surfaces and thus effectively dry-tooling events.

Dry-tooling as a standalone activity developed from the mid-1990s as the standards of mixed-climbing rose dramatically, and the most difficult part of the new extreme M-graded mixed-climbing routes was often the dry-tooling component (e.g. a bare rock roof or a severe rock overhang). Some of the most extreme mixed-climbing routes will also quote a dry-tooling D-grade alongside the M-grade to signify whether there was any ice encountered (i.e. Iron Man in Switzerland is graded M14+/D14+).

As dry-tooling uses the equipment and techniques of mixed climbing, it has followed its increased regulation of equipment to counter criticisms that it is a form of aid climbing. Dry-tooling has faced additional criticisms due to the damage it can do to natural rock surfaces (e.g the ice tools scraping and chipping at the bare rock face), and dry-tooling climbing areas are usually separate from rock climbing areas. Dry tooling has been advocated as a more accessible sport for women as the ice tools help with the physical strain.

Dry-tooling is mixed climbing performed on surfaces that have no ice or snow. The equipment is identical to mixed climbing, except that none of the ice climbing tools used by mixed climbers for providing protection on the route are employed (e.g. ice screws). Dry-tooling climbers use the same fruit boots, monopoint crampons, heel spurs, and advanced leashless ice axes, which mixed climbers use. All of the unique techniques used in mixed climbing including stein pulls, torque pulls, undercling pulls, and figure-four moves are also used in dry-tooling.

While dry-tooling techniques have long been in use in the sport of alpine climbing, the modern sport of dry-tooling is associated with the use of bolted protection on standalone routes, in the same manner as sport climbing developed on standalone rock climbing routes. Like sport climbing, dry-tooling is also closely associated with competition climbing but in the ice climbing discipline. In tandem with the related sports of mixed and ice climbing, the equipment of dry-tooling has become more closely governed and regulated to counter criticisms of the sport being akin to aid climbing. For example, dry-tooling in competition ice climbing no longer allows ice axe leashes and controls the dimensions of tools and the use of heel spurs.

Dry-tooling climbers avoid rock climbing venues as the action of the ice axe can damage fragile holds (i.e. dry-tooling climbers do not attempt to repeat graded rock climbing routes). Popular dry-tooling bolted venues are therefore often explicitly unsuitable for rock climbing due to weak rock (e.g. choss rock as found in the Dolomites or in the Fang Amphitheater in Vail, Colorado), and/or are perpetually in damp and wet condition.

Leading dry-tooling climbers focus on roofs to push standards (and under DTS conditions), and thus many of the most important venues are caves (or quasi-caves), such as A Line Above the Sky (D15 DTS), Parallel World (D16 DTS) in the Tomorrow's World Cave in Marmolada, Bichette Light (D14 DTS) in the L'Usine Cave in Grenoble, or the Storm Giant (D16) in a remote cave in Fernie, British Columbia.

Dry-tooling has always been used by ice climbers and mixed climbers to train in the summer months of the off-season, and as part of mixed climbing, dry-tooling techniques have been used in alpine climbing for decades. In 1994, when Jeff Lowe dry-tooled a bare rock roof to get to the impressive hanging icicle of Octopussy in Vail, Colorado, and graded his ascent at WI6 M8, the sport of mixed climbing, but also dry-tooling was born.