The trip was about 1,200 miles long. During the trip, the Cherokees had to deal with winter weather, blizzards, and diseases. Not everybody agrees on how many people died on the trip. Some say 2,000 and others say 6,000, but most say about 4,000 people died. This was one out of every four people in the Cherokee population. They died from diseases like pneumonia, from freezing to death, from drinking bad water, and from other causes. About half of them died in camps, and the other half during the trip.