From the middle of the flat dusty Snake River Plain where Alpine was born he could see the mountains on the horizon in almost every direction like a physical barrier between him and the world he wanted. He took up mountain climbing during college and continued as a recreational climber during his brief tenure as an accountant for a large publishing firm. The G.I. Joe team gave Alpine the most hazardous of all conditions: With COBRA shooting at him!
"Every time Alpine scales a sheer cliff face piton by piton, overcoming granite and gravity with muscle and persistance, he is symbolically climbing out of the quagmire of his past. That's why we send him up first on vertical assaults. He doesn't take to being knocked down too easily."
