The phrase "a precipitous trail" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a steep or dangerously steep path, often in the context of hiking or outdoor activities.
Example: "The hikers carefully navigated a precipitous trail that led to the summit of the mountain."
Alternatives: "a steep path" or "a sheer trail".
I walked the Vereda do Larano, a precipitous trail hewn from steep seacliffs, with dramatic views towards the island's wave-crashed far east, and hiked up from the natural sea pools of north-westerly Porto Moniz to Fanal, a plateau cloaked in Madeira's finest laurisilva, the primary laurel forest that was once abundant across southern Europe but is now incredibly rare.
Thus, the skirted human figure painted on the door to a toilet, the human figure with an upraised hand on the Pioneer spacecraft, the Amerindian drawing of a horse and rider upside down painted on a rock near a precipitous trail, and the visual patterns branded on range cattle are all attempts to use visual marks to communicate without making any appeal to the structure of any particular language.
Pots and pans, utensils and yak's-wool sacks of rice and flour, six or more months' supplies of rations, all bartered and exchanged on the plains below, still neatly packed from their lengthy journey – lugged by donkey over the mountains' precipitous trails.
The trail occasionally deteriorated into crude stairs – small footholds that tilted vertiginously toward a precipitous slope.
But on Yukness, big patches of snow still covered the trail, including one long stretch that curved up and around the mountain with a precipitous drop on one side.
It was a precipitous fall.
That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
A precipitous drop in melatonin levels occurred.
Suddenly, five tumbled down a precipitous slope.
The sentencing marked a precipitous downfall for Mr. Jackson.
Similarly, in 2011, HP was declining at a precipitous rate.
