Does this head to a waterfall, perhaps?

Yep

Although it has been a while since I've been there, that reminds me of the path to Pup Creek Falls.

close enough. It's the creek to the west, "steppingstone creek". The trail branches off to the west of the creek off the CST and ends at a crummy viewpoint

Oops    I'm gonna cross off Wanderers peak, as I don't remember a piece of metal like that. And Bedford point doesn't have a found trail to it, just roads.

It is neither of those.  This metal is clearly visible from the trail, probably no more than 10 feet from the tread.

Squaw mountain

You need to head south.

How about around Mt. Lowe somewhere?

kirk said How about around Mt. Lowe somewhere?

You are getting closer, but you are too far east, and a little bit too far south. Another clue - there was a small fire in this area not too long ago (less than 10 years).  

Well, it has been a ghost town around here and no one appears interested in this trail, so I'll post the answer.  That metal container was found on the Thunder Mountain trail, very near the junction with the Skookum Lake trail.  It was along that ridge.  Interesting find. If anyone feels compelled to post a photo, please do.

I hope everyone who wanted to get out and hike a trail did so this last weekend or Monday like I did, or even today. With the valley all fogged in, the mountains basted in the winter sunshine. On Monday, I was able to get away from the holiday rush and find peace and quite in the woods on a favorite abandoned trail up the Clackamas and enjoy the sunshine. The road up was clear to Big Bottom, but I'm sure icy spots and packed snow were up higher, but I didn't travel any further. This photo is from an abandoned trail in the district. Don 

No guesses! Well this trail was used to reach a lookout in our district before a road replaced it. Don

Might this aforementioned lookout be on a butte?

For an abandoned trail, it's in very good shape!

This is a "butte" trail Kirk. It's abandoned, but still easy enough to follow, if you know where to look. Don

I'm going to take a wild guess and say this is the old Oak Grove Butte trail.

Rob you are correct, it is a portion of the old Oak Grove Butte Trail about 1-200 yards above where the Switch Creek Trail joins the trail. Your turn to post one! Don

I forgot to mention that the last posting made me think about how many buttes in our district had lookouts? I can think of 4 right off, but I think there were more. Oak Grove, Baty, Sisi, and Olallie Buttes. Did North and West Pinhead Buttes ,Pyramid, Potatoe, or Signal Buttes have lookouts also? The list keeps growing, but I do know for sure that some had phone boxes on them to call out on as well as many of the mountain peaks of the district.