Round Trip Distance: 1 - 3.5 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Elevation: 5738 - 5770 feet
Cellphone: 0 bars
Time: 1 - 3 hrs.
Trailhead: Sid and Charlie east or west
Fee: none
Attractions: Petroglyphs
Broken Hearted Man is an interesting petroglyph site that is located near the Sid and Charlie rock formation in the San Rafael Swell about 10 miles east of Moore, Utah. The character for which the site gets its name is of an anthropomorphic image that appears to have tears streaming from its eyes and possibly a wound in its chest.
Broken Hearted Man can be accessed from the east by starting at the Sid and Charlie trailhead or from the west via a road that the BLM Interactive Map labels as the Upper Sid and Charlie Road. We have it labeled as the Sand Bench Road on the map with this post. It begins just east of mile marker 11 of the Moore Cutoff Road. The regular Sid and Charlie Road begins just east of mile marker 13.
It is easier to give directions from the west because all you do is follow the road for just under 3.3 miles to where it crosses Dry Wash and then hike up the wash for less than a half mile and you are there. If starting at the Sid and Charlie trailhead you turn to the left when the trail reaches the wash and then follow the wash for about 3 tenths of a mile, take the right fork and follow it for about a quarter mile where you take the left fork for another quarter mile and climb out of the wash on the right where the petroglyphs are only a few hundred feet away.
The wash is pretty easy to hike in regardless of which way you are coming from. As you head up the wash it gradually gets deeper. Broken Hearted Man is up on a bench on the north side of the wash. Coming from the west the are several easy spots to scramble up to the bench from the wash. If you go past them the bank gets much steeper until you get around to the eastern approach.
This is what it looks like once you get out of the wash and on the bench. Broken Hearted Man is on the short cliffs to the left a few hundred feet away. This photo is also showing some other very nice petroglyphs that are in a branch of North Salt Wash on the other side of the ridge that separates Dry Wash from North Salt Wash. If you look close you will notice a saddle in that ridge where you will find dozens of petroglyphs on both sides of the gap. We will include them in their own post that will be titled 'North Salt Wash'.
Broken Hearted Man stands out from the other petroglyphs on the cliff.
We have seen petroglyphs that are very similar in design at other locations even as far away as Cedar Point. This one is unique in that the legs seem to indicate movement, maybe as though fleeing, and the mark on the body appears to be a wound. It might only mean that the person was wounded while fleeing but didn't actually die as death is more often indicated by an upside down image. Whatever the case the prominent figure was certainly made deep enough into the rock to stand up well for all these years. (Be sure not to touch it so that it can stay that way.)
Other images along the cliff appear to be much older or are more faded like this shield. The styles of the images also show some differences. Look closely at the lower left of the shield at what looks to us like an image from the basketmaker periods.
We have to include this photo because it looks cartoonish to us. We call it the 'Sheep Parade'.
Besides the petroglyphs on the other side of the ridge in North Salt Wash there are also a few a little further east down Dry Wash where this branch meets up with another that comes in from the north. To get there you need to get back down into the wash and follow it all the way around the point of the cliffs, a little over a quarter mile away, where there is an easy spot to climb out of the wash.
There are only a few images but some people might find them interesting.
