In an extended contest my group likes to vary the skill being used. To help them you have to give them a range of obstacles to overcome so they can use different abilities or improivise in exciting ways. In a simple contest describing the river as Swift 5W is fine, you are only making the one roll.
In an extended contest you need something closer to Gareth Martin's suggestion - a range of abilities Hidden Rocks 3W, Dangeroous Eddy 2W. In turn the hero can use a range of abilities Swim, Tough, Brave (avoid panicking) etc.
However, I would not necessarily chose to list them, I'd just declare my River as 5W and then bullet point a couple of bids by the River for inspiration as things developed. Its partly lazy,but partly because the numbers and bids will reflect their bids as well as mine.
I'd probably gauge the river's ability number for the roll from my river's rating (5W), the heroes ability and the drama I was trying to create. Of course you always want to give heroes who can swim the chance to shine.
Also encourage heroes to be equally creative. For example the hero might want try bidding using Local Area Knowledge to know of the best route across the river "I try to remember Hakon the swimmer telling me how to cross this section avoiding the submerged rocks" would be a good low AP bid.
When heroes reach the far side they have two options: augemnt or lend AP. Throwing a rope for example is augmenting with Strong or Large.
Remember heroes that are defeated may well just be swept downstream, injured on rocks and waiting for their freinds to find them before they expire.
Ian Cooper
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