A hiker who gained fame for scaling summits while scantily clad has been found frozen to death on the side of a mountain in Taiwan after suffering a bad fall during her latest challenge.
Dubbed the ‘Bikini hiker’, Gigi Wu clearly had a passion for climbing. The 36-year-old ascended many of Taiwan’s tallest mountains and she captured a legion of followers on social media for her saucy snaps taken from their peaks.
Wu spent nearly 130 days climbing last year but all that experience couldn’t help her when she ran into trouble while hiking in Taiwan’s Yushan National Park last week.
Wu, who is also known as Wu Chi-yun, set out on a solo hike on January 11. On Saturday, after eight days trekking, she made a distress call to a friend after falling more than 20 meters into a ravine. She told her friend that she was trapped in the ravine as her injuries left her unable to move.
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Commander Lin Cheng-I, of the Nantou County Fire Department, told reporters that Wu activated her distress beacon at an altitude of 1,700 meters (5,577 feet) above sea level, where night-time temperatures reach 2 degrees Celsius, Liberty Times reports.
The Taiwanese National Airborne Service Corps quickly scrambled a rescue team to the national park in a desperate bid to help the stricken climber.
However, bad weather had rolled in and it played havoc with the rescue effort. On three occasions a rescue helicopter had to abandon the mission due to the adverse conditions, Taiwan News reports.
When those efforts failed, the local fire department sent in two search and rescue parties on foot to search for Wu. After a lengthy trek, Wu's body was found at the location of her distress beacon 28 hours later.
Many of her fans paid tribute to their fallen idol on social media. “RIP. Thank you for showing the world the beauty of Taiwan,” one person wrote.
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