A Taiwanese social media star known as the “bikini hiker” for her swimwear-clad mountain treks has died after plunging into a ravine.
GiGi Wu, 36, is believed to have frozen to death eight days into a 25-day hike through Taiwan’s Yushan National Park after falling between 20 and 30 metres into a gully on Saturday afternoon and injuring her leg.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“Due to bad weather, three rescue helicopters were unable to reach her, and Nantou County Fire Department travelled to meet her on foot,” says Taiwan News.
After a 28-hour trek through perilous conditions, rescuers found Wu’s lifeless body yesterday. She had apparently died of hypothermia in zero-degree temperatures overnight. Her body was airlifted from the scene of the accident.
Wu had built an online following in Taiwan and beyond for her daring expeditions. She had successfully completed more than 100 hikes over four years, posing in 97 different bikinis.
In one striking image, she poses in front of snow-capped peaks wearing only a bikini and a woolly hat.
The gimmick may appear foolhardy, but Wu “usually wore hiking clothes to scale the mountains, only changing into a bikini once she reached the top”, says AFP.
Despite the carefree image she conveyed online, Wu was “an experienced hiker [who] used proper equipment and procedure on expeditions”, Sky News reports.
Fans have flooded her Instagram and Facebook page with tributes in the hours following her death.
One message quoted in the London Evening Standard read: “From one fellow hiker to another, may you spend eternity scaling heavenly mountains.”
-
Pipe bombs: The end of a conspiracy theory?Feature Despite Bongino and Bondi’s attempt at truth-telling, the MAGAverse is still convinced the Deep State is responsible
-
The robot revolutionFeature Advances in tech and AI are producing android machine workers. What will that mean for humans?
-
Health: Will Kennedy dismantle U.S. immunization policy?Feature ‘America’s vaccine playbook is being rewritten by people who don’t believe in them’
-
How Bulgaria’s government fell amid mass protestsThe Explainer The country’s prime minister resigned as part of the fallout
-
Femicide: Italy’s newest crimeThe Explainer Landmark law to criminalise murder of a woman as an ‘act of hatred’ or ‘subjugation’ but critics say Italy is still deeply patriarchal
-
Brazil’s Bolsonaro behind bars after appeals run outSpeed Read He will serve 27 years in prison
-
Americans traveling abroad face renewed criticism in the Trump eraThe Explainer Some of Trump’s behavior has Americans being questioned
-
Nigeria confused by Trump invasion threatSpeed Read Trump has claimed the country is persecuting Christians
-
Sanae Takaichi: Japan’s Iron Lady set to be the country’s first woman prime ministerIn the Spotlight Takaichi is a member of Japan’s conservative, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party
-
Russia is ‘helping China’ prepare for an invasion of TaiwanIn the Spotlight Russia is reportedly allowing China access to military training
-
Interpol arrests hundreds in Africa-wide sextortion crackdownIN THE SPOTLIGHT A series of stings disrupts major cybercrime operations as law enforcement estimates millions in losses from schemes designed to prey on lonely users
