Bikini Climber Died after a Fall from a Mountain in Taiwan

Rescue teams from Taiwan have finally retrieved the body of the hiker who has become famous on social media for taking selfies on the top of mountains always dressed in a bikini.

Gigi Wu popularly known as the “Bikini Climber” by fans, used her satellite phone to inform her friends about the fatal fall down a ravine in Taiwan’s Yushan National Park. Rescue teams and helicopters struggled hard to reach her because of bad weather to discover her lifeless body.

Rescue teams and officials said that Wu had told her friends that she is not able to move the lower half of her body after a fall from about 20-30 meters (65-100 feet) but was able to give her coordinates and direction, but weather condition delayed rescue operation and she froze to death because of the weather.

Lin Cheng-yi, of Nantou County Fire and Rescue Services, said, “The weather conditions in the mountains are not good, we have asked our rescuers to move the body to a more open space and after the weather clears we will make a request for a helicopter to bring the body down”. Lin also said that their rescue team hiked for 28 hours to reach the body almost without sleep as they knew temperatures were rapidly plunging.

She is the latest among the social media adventure seekers who have met an untimely end. A few weeks ago, bodies of an Indian couple were discovered at the bottom of a popular hill inside California’s Yosemite National Park, after some hikers alerted the park officials finding their camera equipment at the top of the cliff.

A native of New Taipei City, 36-year-old Wu has built up a sizeable social media following through photos of her, dressed in bikinis at the top of mountains. She usually wore hiking clothes to scale the mountains, once she reached the top, she used to change into a bikini to click photos and videos.

Last year during an interview with local channel FTV, she revealed that she had scaled more than 100 peaks in four years, she said, “I put on a bikini in each one of the 100 mountains. I only have around 97 bikinis so I accidentally repeated some”. When asked about her unique interest, she said, “It just looks so beautiful, what’s not to like?”

While Taiwan is a largely tropical country, it also boasts a spine of towering peaks. In the winter season temperatures drops routinely below the freezing point, on the mountain slopes.