The route remained unchanged until the mid-1990s, when government cutbacks led to a mass transferring—or downloading—of a significant portion of the provincial highway network.

[2] As it exists today, the former routing begins in the City of Kawartha Lakes at a junction with Highway 35 north of the village of Cameron.

It angles northeast as Kawartha Lakes Road 121, travelling through farmland for 5.6 km (3.5 mi) before entering Fenelon Falls, a town centred on a lock on the Trent–Severn Waterway.

At Somerville Sixth Concession (Hillside Drive, now Kawartha Lakes Road 44), the route again assumes and eastward direction.

Immediately south of the Gull River crossing, the route diverges east from Highway 35 as Haliburton County Road 21.

Throughout the 23 km (14 mi) distance between Minden and Haliburton Village, the highway serves cottages along the northern shore of Kashagawigamog Lake.

Nearly 4 km (2.5 mi) to the east, drivers must turn to remain on the route, as the mainline continues north into Wilberforce as former Highway 648.

One of these was Highway 109, which was designated (reusing the short-lived 109 numbering formerly on Eglinton Avenue in Scarborough) then constructed over the next couple years.

[2] As part of a series of budget cuts initiated by premier Mike Harris under his Common Sense Revolution platform in 1995, numerous highways deemed to no longer be of significance to the provincial network were decommissioned and responsibility for the routes transferred to a lower level of government, a process referred to as downloading.