Possible intimidation in the late afternoon reported by hikers in the Big Tujunga Canyon area witnessed in Los Angeles County, California

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Me and a friend at the time were hiking in the Angeles National forest. My friend was just out of boot camp USMC and we started hiking as often as time would allow. We were hiking down a small stream bed that went down hill. The stream was all dried up and it was mostly rock hopping until we got to the bottom of the hill, at one point there is a small section off to the side that is just dirt and makes for a much easier walk down to the bottom. When we got to the bottom we hiked a bit more but as the sun started to go down, we headed back up the same hill/creek bed. I followed my own boot tracks back up as I was tired of rock hopping, while going up, the smell in the air was horrible, like rotten eggs or portable toilet, I then noticed on one of my tracks laid a dead ground squirrel, right over my boot track. I pointed this out to my friend and as soon as I did this, a loud banging over a short hill side was heard, it was coming from about 35-50 yards away from us. It sounded as ...