Well, this was a sad and terrible thing. I had never heard of Gigi Wu while she was alive, but apparently she was well-known in some quarters as the “bikini hiker,” and now she’s dead.
Her “practice” was to walk, or trek, though not actually climb, up mountain peaks and then take a picture of herself wearing a bikini, or in these cases have somebody take it, I assume. She seems to have been very serious about the walking, but also a social media walker. The walk was nothing without the photograph and vice versa. She also, let’s face it, looked pretty good in a bikini.
Gigi Wu, was Taiwanese, and she died on a solo walk, falling into a ravine in Yushan National Park, also in Taiwan. She seems actually to have died of hypothermia. She managed to contact rescue services but they couldn’t get to her because of bad weather.
Her Instagram account which is tagged barefootbikinihiker is currently closed but they say it’ll be reopened as a memorial, once the funeral has taken place.
Incidentally if you type bikinihiker into Instagram or Google you’ll find that scores, maybe hundreds, maybe thousands of women are hiking in bikinis, including Ann Wheeler of Clayton-le-Woods, in Lancashire who is described thus by the Caters news agency: “A mum was inspired by a near-death experience to get ‘body confident’ and go on 20-mile hikes in just a BIKINI and boots – but jealous women have told their walker husbands to KEEP AWAY.”
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| Ann Wheeler, with a friend |
Ah men, ah women, ah news stories. Ann Wheeler was, and I suppose still is, suffering from Cauda Equina Syndrome, which is a monstrous thing caused by damage to nerves below the spinal column. Seems that its severity can vary enormously but you still have to admire someone who has that condition, and according to the reports, has done all 214 of Wainwright’s walks in the Lake District. The bikini only adds to the fun.
