EASTERNERS, among whom we count those folks from President Obama's cabinet visiting our Valley this week who are part of America's Great Outdoors initiative, can't help but be awed by our open space inventory.

Everything in the West is bigger in scope, including right here - from Mount Wilson's 5,710 feet plateau to Mount Baldy's 10,064 feet apex. Even our magnificent canyons, San Gabriel Canyon and Big Santa Anita Canyon, two close-by entrances to the 102-year-old, 655,387-acre Angeles National Forest, are large and much mightier than anything on the East Coast.

Hundreds of community leaders and environmentalists sent a collective message to a group of high-level Obama Administration officials at Whittier Narrows Recreation Area on Wednesday: We need more parks, we need more exercise and we need more of your help getting both.

They made the appeals to the president's top environmental policy advisor and to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency during a public forum on the banks of Legg Lake. In particular, they sought federal help getting improved access to the nearby San Gabriel Mountains.

CHALK it up to the persistence of The Wilderness Society and San Gabriel Mountains Forever. When the Obama administration announced plans to bring its national tour promoting America's Great Outdoors initiative listening sessions to Southern California, this Thursday afternoon's official session at Occidental College wasn't close enough to the heart of the San Gabriel Valley for them.

SOUTH EL MONTE - Officials from the Obama Administration will meet with local environmental and community groups at Whittier Narrows on Wednesday to discuss their concerns about the quality and quantity of outdoor recreation opportunities in the San Gabriel Valley.

The event, open to the public, will cast a national spotlight on the San Gabriel Mountains and River and allow local officials to highlight the need for additional federal resources to provide outdoor opportunities to residents of the park-starved San Gabriel Valley, according to event organizers.

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST - Don Bremner of Pasadena and his fellow Sierra Club hikers have hardly given up their passion for the sport, despite last year's devastating Station Fire.

Since large swaths of the Angeles National Forest were closed last fall, the outdoor and environmental organization has had to cancel, change the location, or alter transportation routes on many of its scheduled hikes in the area.

Local environmental organizations say the San Gabriel Valley will get valuable face time with some of the Obama administration's highest-level environmental policy officials next month to voice concerns about outdoor recreation opportunities here.

If Belinda Faustinos gets her way, President Barack Obama will be sitting in the El Monte Community Center sometime in the coming months learning about local endeavors to protect open spaces and reconnect kids with the great outdoors.

Faustinos, the executive officer of the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy, knows her wish is a long shot, so she also has a more realistic, but still challenging, goal: getting high level officials from the Obama administration here.

Environmentalists, cities, scientists and hikers want a larger portion of the mountain range and its rivers shielded from pollution and population woes with strong federal protections.

The river ripples cold around his waders as Bill Reeves casts a dry fly onto a pool edged with alders on the bottom of a canyon deep in the San Gabriel Mountains.

http://www.latimes.com/videobeta/a81a27fb-1afb-4896-ae55-ce10e14b2637/Ne...

EVERY time I step outside the San Gabriel Valley I'm reminded how much better they have it than we do when it comes to federal funding.

I've got a local chip on my shoulder the size of Mount Wilson. When I get all riled up as I did this past weekend, it can be a parochial whine that resembles a full case of sour grapes.
But I don't care if people call me a homer. Because this is where I've lived for nearly 30 years, where I bought my first home, where I've raised my children, where I've worked as an indefatigable advocate.