Desirée Verbeek (RCI) is a climbing guide and coach from the Netherlands. Growing up in what might be the flattest country in the world – there is certainly no rock to climb! – Desirée discovered climbing through indoor climbing gyms. When she first stepped into an indoor gym after the summer of 2010 she immediately thought of it as the ultimate playground for adults.
It was only after her first outdoor climbing trip in the next summer though (to Austria’s Ötztal) that she got the point of climbing indoors: to be able to climb more routes outdoors! She got hooked and started climbing more regularly indoors and tried to fit in as many outdoor climbing trips as possible to the nearest crags in Belgium, Germany and the UK.
On a climbing holiday in Thailand in 2012 she met Trevor Massiah. This turned out to be a turning point in her lifestyle and career. She fully committed to climbing and in 2014 she became a Director of Rock & Sun and has been combining her management tasks with guiding and coaching ever since.
Desirée and Trevor have a travelling lifestyle, running Rock & Sun Sport Climbing Holidays and Outdoor Climbing Coaching in the Costa Blanca, Thailand, Kalymnos, as well as Sardinia. And occasionally you’ll find them trad climbing on Pembrokeshire’s sea cliffs, or bouldering in Fontainebleau or Albarracin.
(Photo by Bettina Baksa)
Desiree is a Rock Climbing Instructor (RCI), formerly known as Single Pitch Award (SPA), and is qualified as a Mental Health First Aider.
Mountain Training Membership number: 171294.
Climb with Desiree Verbeek
Costa Blanca Climbing Holidays >
Sport Climbing Holiday Kalymnos >