Directions To And On The Dufferin Quarry Bridge Hike

Last Updated: September 30, 2002

The following are updated directions for a hike to Dufferin Quarry Bridge. They are based on a hike described in Hiking Ontario's Heartland, by Shirley Teasdale, 1995. The book was a bit out of date, and we ended up making two wrong turns, increasing the 10.5 km hike to a 14 km hike. The following are directions that worked for me in September, 2002.

Getting There

From Teasdale's book (the notes are mine): Take Highway 401 to milton, exiting onto Highway 25 North, and driving approximately 1 km¹ to the 5th Sideroad (Campbellville Road). Turn left and follw the 5th Sideroad to the 6th Line. Turn right and drive north approximately 3 km on the 6th Line² to a small parking lot on the west side, just north of a rockcut.³ There is a Halton Region Agreement Forest sign at the entrance.

Note:

It's a bit more than 1 km.
On the 6th Line, you will pass a golf course. The trail comes out at this golf course.
There is an even smaller parking lot on the west side of the road past the trail entrance. If you park there, you will walk back to along the road to get to the trail entrance, and your walk back to your car from where the trail comes back to the road will be even further.

The Hike

Walk north on the 6th Line past the Sheridan College School of Heavy Equipment until you see another Halton Region Agreement Forest sign on the right side of the road. This is the trail entrance.
Follow the trail through the forest. You will encounter four gates, each of increasing complexity to pass through. The first has been knocked down and you just walk over. The second has a hole cut in the wire and you can just slip through the hole. The third you have to lift to swing open. The fourth you have to undo a hook on an elastic band (be sure to rehook it after passing through). Note that the second and third gates are on either side of a quarry road.
At the fourth gate is a gravel road. Turn right on the road and follow it to the end, where you will find a checkerboard sign. The trail (almost a road here) continues past this sign.
Follow this trail, which will lead you along side the quarry. Eventually, this trail will meet the Bruce Trail. This is the tricky part. There are two signs for the Bruce Trail here. If you go left (north) on the trail, you will be headed towards Tobermory (i.e., the wrong way for this hike). You want to go right on the Bruce Trail. But be careful: there are two trails to the right! The bigger trail (the one that matches the Bruce Trail north) will lead you down the escarpment to the golf course. You don't want this trail. Instead, look for the other Bruce Trail sign and head directly towards it. It doesn't look much like a trail initially, but eventually it becomes more trail-like, although it never looks as big as the road you just came off of.
You will follow the Bruce Trail (marked by white trail blazes) to the road. This is the good part of the hike, which is along the esparment, near high cliffs and deep fissures. Along the way, you will cross the Dufferin Quarry Bridge.
When you reach the road, turn right and make the unpleasant, 2 km trudge back to your car on a road that initially has a shoulder, but is sans shoulder most of the way, with more cars than you feel such a road should have (and more expensive cars than you'd expect, too! Who lives down here???). It's at this point that you think it'd have been nice to have brought a bicycle to leave near the golf course to ride back to the car...