You can check the status of peer node at amboss by querying its pubkey. If the peer has a contact point, then you can try to contact for mutual closing. If not, you can try force closing.
Discussion
I'll attempt to contact. Thanks
You might first try to connect to the peer by
lightning-cli connect
If this works, then you can close more smoothly without any other tedious issues.
I appreciate your knowledge and assistance. It's obvious to me now that I may have made a mistake trying to do this on my own without guidance from somebody like yourself with your experience.
I have initiated the force close on the channel. I do hope I can recover the funds. Having zero experience during this whole situation has made this very stressful. However it is certainly a learning experience that is for sure.
I am happy to hear that my advice was helpful. I think you are already in a good step! Good luck on your journey to the lightning network!
You can find useful information on CLN here:
https://docs.corelightning.org/docs
https://docs.corelightning.org/reference/get_list_methods_resource