Mom claimed I had been conceived in the Sierras, so I came by my love for them honestly. And in several decades of hiking and camping and fishing and driving through them, I never had any issues with bears. Until I did. Guys from our church camped in Gray’s Meadow outside Independence in 1990, and after chasing trout on other streams we came back to a campsite in chaos with missing items. The campground host came over, explaining that a bear had strolled in and…