Possible growling at hikers near the San Gabriel Wilderness witnessed in Los Angeles County, California

Open Map

This is what you might call a stretch, but here goes anyway: About 15 years ago, when I was 17-18, I went on a hike with a friend trying to reach Smith Mountain, on the edge of the San Gabriel Wilderness. We made it up to the saddle where the trail goes downhill into the wilderness, and where we were supposed to leave the trail and go south up the mountain, and decided we didn't feel like going any further. I'm assuming we rested for awhile, and I remember just talking and hanging out. As we were getting up and ready to go, we heard a strange noise coming from the bushes nearby. We stopped talking and listened, and it was a very low sort of growl/snuffling sound. My first thought was that it was probably a bear, but that ultimately I had no idea what it was, and it sounded like it was growling at us. The bushes along the trail there were very high, such that we couldn't see through them. It scared the hell out of us and so we quickly hoofed it back down the trail. I'm not sure if we...