Me and my gf were taking a cable car up this mountain from a Swiss ski resort during off-season to go hiking. The weather was pretty bad too, it was the end of the day, so we were the only people taking the cable cars. We rushed over there, because it was something like 16:25 and it was closing at 16:30. The whole ride is about 15 minutes. You might see where this is going. Exactly at 16:30, we're about 3/4 way up by then, all the cable cars stop, and start swinging. They don't normally swing while they're being pulled, if they stop mid-way, then they start to swing. Apparently, this isn't such a rare occurance, but we're not skiiers and this was very unsettling. You just see a long fall onto steep rocks below you and hear the wind howling, all the while the thing (that is hardly bigger than a changing booth) is swinging like a gigantic swinging set. It then started moving again after about 60 seconds, only to stop again after maybe 30 seconds, and then it started and stopped 2-3 more times. It was nerve wracking. I look back to it with a smile, but when the cable car finally arrived at the top we practically flew out of it.
Perhaps stopping to prevent the car banging sideways at the walls when entering at the top. This could be an automatic safety feature. You wrote that the weather was bad, was it windy?
