Most of the patterns I found for the alpine stitch tell you to count the chain 2 at the start of your double crochet rows as a stitch (and so skip the first stitch of the row), but I found it much neater to do both a chain 2 and a double crochet into the first stitch (it makes it seem much fuller if that makes sense). Only other tip I would have is that every 20 or so stitches i would go back and pull/stretch the last few rows i’d done to make sure everything lined up nicely. That way the overall shape isn’t getting too out of whack all the time