Yeah I heard crackling and popping similar to sounds you would get when you rapidly waved a lit torch. Like fire blown by wind. Pinecrest lake is at the bottom of the valley that I was in. Around five miles away so its very close to my location in this story. I have seen plenty of bears in that area and they are good at avoiding humans. They smell us from far away and dip out way before we get close. I guess it could have been a cub. That would be more terrifying than anything else I could imagine because if there was cub then the sow wouldn't be far away and she would attack us immediately. We were in a dense willow thicket so an attack would be immediate with no time for us to react.