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I read a sentence in a chapter named 'Silk Road' in 'Hornbill' book which was:

The trail hugged its bank, twisting with the meanders as we gradually gained height and the valley sides closed in.

The 'trail' in the sentence means a path but what is the meaning of bank? Does that mean a steep slope? Correct me if I am wrong.

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    It means the sides of the path, like the banks of a river. It could be a steep slope, but it doesn't have to be. Just a clearly delimited edge to the path. For example the forest floor instead of trampled ground where people walk.
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 14:38
  • Steep slope sounds likely, but there isn't enough information to know for sure.
    – Jason Bassford
    Commented Dec 3, 2018 at 17:26

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The answer is definitively contained in the sentence immediately prior to the quote:

By now we could see snow-capped mountains gathering on the horizon. We entered a valley where the river was wide and mostly clogged with ice, brilliant white and glinting in the sunshine. The trail hugged its bank, twisting with the meanders as we gradually gained height and the valley sides closed in.

It in the quotation in the question is the river, and bank refers to the bank of the river, along which the trail ran.

While a river bank could easily be a shallow and wide slope (with the trail following the highest contour), it's more likely to be steep, falling to the river itself, with the trail above and not far away from the water.

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Sounds like the trail was following a river and the bank concerned would be the riverbank (the previous sentence might help in understanding what 'its bank' was referring to).

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